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Virgil Van Dijk


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1 hour ago, dockers_strike said:

Virgil doing a spot of training in Dubai with Seedorf. Anyone know why he's using facilities in Dubai after we've just opened the new training complex?

NAS Sports Complex.

 

Given it’s 25d in Dubai at the moment & cold as shut here, I don’t think you can blame him.

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FFS he's a professional but he's also human. Having the motivation to play at the business end of the season for a great team and for his country at the Euros would be a big part of why his rehab is going as well as it has so far. 

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4 minutes ago, A_S said:

FFS he's a professional but he's also human. Having the motivation to play at the business end of the season for a great team and for his country at the Euros would be a big part of why his rehab is going as well as it has so far. 


If he doesn’t come back for us and as long as he’s medically cleared (which he obviously would be), I’ve no issue with him getting his match fitness back with the Dutch.

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If he's fit, why not play in the Euros - I'd like to see him and Gini there, even winning it.

 

It's not like it's the "Conference of Nations League" against fucking San Marino and Gibraltar or whatever the fuck they call those meaningless Mickey Mouse international break games that injure all our players these days.

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34 minutes ago, Anubis said:

I don’t want him in the Euros if he isn’t fully medically cleared. Fuck Frank de Boer. Fuck the Dutch. And fuck the Euros. Our medical team should make the decision and only we should sign off on it.

Is the right answer. 

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I dont care if it is Virgil van Dijk, I'll be pissed off if he only plays 2 or 3 games for us at the end of the season then turns out for the Netherlands at Euro whatever year it's called, this year.

 

Naby fucked himself and the club over with that stomach injury at the end of his first season then went to the ACON, played one game for his country, made the injury worse, was fucked for us at the start of the season and has been injured ever since.

 

After this serious injury, even Virgil's likely to be susceptable to more injuries when he comes back.

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11 hours ago, Anubis said:

I don’t want him in the Euros if he isn’t fully medically cleared. Fuck Frank de Boer. Fuck the Dutch. And fuck the Euros. Our medical team should make the decision and only we should sign off on it.

 

Which he obviously will be & we will.

 

If there is talk of him being back before May, unless he has a set back, I assume the only issue will him be regaining his match fitness and sharpness. 

 

If he's back before the end of the season for us, then great.

 

If he's not match fit enough for us, needs another couple of weeks and can regain his sharpness in the summer, I genuinely don't see the problem. 

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I think we're starting to see how much we're missing VVD and not in one of the ways most of us expected.

 

IMO, when VVD is in the side, sides try to hurt us by getting behind TAA & Robbo. Before VVD's injury, Leeds scored from it, Arsenal scored from it, Villa scored from it & Chelsea tried it but Werner just ran into Fabinho every time.

 

Teams still continue to do this, but sides were pressing our centre backs more, probably encouraged by the mistakes Gomez and VVD have made since we won the league - but I assume also to stop the quick balls out to the full backs.

 

Take the Arsenal game for example. Arteta waxed lyrical about us after the game. "You can press, this you've backed them into a corner and then VVD pings a 60 yarder to the wing & they are out, thats real quality".

 

However now, sides are more comfortable getting behind the ball and spreading themselves the width of the pitch. Although Fabinho & Matip both have good passing ranges, neither can ping the ball forwards, with such pace and accuracy as VVD. They are happier for Fabinho, Matip, or the Williams' to have the ball because they can't hurt them the same was VVD could.

 

And then that impacts the rest of the side. The full backs push high as they always do, but the passes don't come to them as quickly, sides are better protected against us and we have to go sideways or backwards more.

 

It goes sideways into midfield and because sides are better protected, there is less space for them to play into the forwards. The midfielders are probably taking less risks passing the ball because they don't want to give it away, with the full backs out of position and without the insurance of VVD just mopping everything up.

 

And then because we can't get any increases in tempo to our play, we slip into the type of play lacking urgency we saw v WBA & Newcastle. 

 

You can see the importance of good balls from the back for Mane's goal v WBA.

 

Matip also hasn't done any of his mazy runs since VVD has been out the side, likely less confident in whats behind him.

 

Obviously we miss VVD's defence qualities as well, every side in the world would miss him. We also miss his goals. VVD scored 5 goals last season. A couple in games where we were struggling to break sides down. So far, Matip has 1 in a game we were coasting. 

 

I assume Southampton will play higher and try to press us more, hopefully allowing us space in behind. I assume the mancs will be miserable fucks and sit back and try and soak it up - IMO, the best thing is for them to continue getting ahead of themselves and try to take us on head-on, because they aren't good enough to do it.

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It also shows up the complete lack of understanding from the experts, which is obviously no surprise. VVD was a massively important cog in our machine and like them all effects every other aspect of our game but the idiots just spout not conceding so don't miss VVD or any of the other players who are out injured. Hopefully Thiago will help in this respect.

As you mention Matip and his forward runs is another perfect example. I am not a footballing genius but these people getting paid to give their qualified views really are astounding at talking in clichés and nothing else.

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I think he’ll be back before the end of the season, but not by much. 
 

Also don’t see why he shouldn’t play in the Euros. The lads never played in a major international tournament and he’s the captain so he’ll be desperate to make it. Surely, after this long out, playing a few games for Holland helps get him fitter for the new season? 
 

 

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Him playing in the Euros benefits us because these injuries take ages to fully come back from, so the more playing time he has the quicker he'll get back to full speed.

 

Of course there's a risk he might get injured again but that risk is there even if he's just training with us. 

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Im left wondering if the club is confident Virgil will be back a lot sooner than we think. Clearly ACL injuries are severe but almost everyone commented at the time Virgil was able to walk all the way around the pitch, unaided and not apparently in pain.

 

Yeah, he's a hard character and might not show the pain but walking on it if it was really bad might not be possible without your knee giving way.

 

Does that suggest the ACL only had a small tear rather than a full on rupture? Players like Shearer, Owen and Ox all had to be carried off the pitch when they had theirs.

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On 03/01/2021 at 09:51, Scott_M said:

I think we're starting to see how much we're missing VVD and not in one of the ways most of us expected.

 

IMO, when VVD is in the side, sides try to hurt us by getting behind TAA & Robbo. Before VVD's injury, Leeds scored from it, Arsenal scored from it, Villa scored from it & Chelsea tried it but Werner just ran into Fabinho every time.

 

Teams still continue to do this, but sides were pressing our centre backs more, probably encouraged by the mistakes Gomez and VVD have made since we won the league - but I assume also to stop the quick balls out to the full backs.

 

Take the Arsenal game for example. Arteta waxed lyrical about us after the game. "You can press, this you've backed them into a corner and then VVD pings a 60 yarder to the wing & they are out, thats real quality".

 

However now, sides are more comfortable getting behind the ball and spreading themselves the width of the pitch. Although Fabinho & Matip both have good passing ranges, neither can ping the ball forwards, with such pace and accuracy as VVD. They are happier for Fabinho, Matip, or the Williams' to have the ball because they can't hurt them the same was VVD could.

 

And then that impacts the rest of the side. The full backs push high as they always do, but the passes don't come to them as quickly, sides are better protected against us and we have to go sideways or backwards more.

 

It goes sideways into midfield and because sides are better protected, there is less space for them to play into the forwards. The midfielders are probably taking less risks passing the ball because they don't want to give it away, with the full backs out of position and without the insurance of VVD just mopping everything up.

 

And then because we can't get any increases in tempo to our play, we slip into the type of play lacking urgency we saw v WBA & Newcastle. 

 

You can see the importance of good balls from the back for Mane's goal v WBA.

 

Matip also hasn't done any of his mazy runs since VVD has been out the side, likely less confident in whats behind him.

 

Obviously we miss VVD's defence qualities as well, every side in the world would miss him. We also miss his goals. VVD scored 5 goals last season. A couple in games where we were struggling to break sides down. So far, Matip has 1 in a game we were coasting. 

 

I assume Southampton will play higher and try to press us more, hopefully allowing us space in behind. I assume the mancs will be miserable fucks and sit back and try and soak it up - IMO, the best thing is for them to continue getting ahead of themselves and try to take us on head-on, because they aren't good enough to do it.

We've coped fine without him and Gomez in the sense that we've not been conceding many goals since their injuries. The problem is, stylistically we're much worse off. Can't play a high line, can't press as well, can't squeeze the spaces and compress the pitch. And specifically with van Dijk, as you say, we miss the long passing and the set piece threat. 

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