Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk has hit back at Manchester United legend Wayne Rooney over his \u201clazy criticism\u201d of the Reds defender.<\/p>\n
The Merseysiders were crowned champions last season as Arne Slot\u2019s side romped to the Premier League title, finishing ten points ahead of second-placed Arsenal.<\/p>\n
However, despite winning their first five matches of the season, Liverpool<\/strong><\/a> find themselves in third place currently after a run of four straight defeats in the Premier League<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n They ended that awful form on Saturday by beating Aston Villa at Anfield but it looks like that big blip could see them miss out on defending their Premier League title.<\/p>\n Van Dijk and the rest of his defence have come in for lots of criticism in recent weeks with Liverpool putting in disorganised and sloppy displays.<\/p>\n Speaking about criticism from a number of former players and pundits after beating Aston Villa 2-0, Van Dijk said: \u201cI think it\u2019s a funny thing, isn\u2019t it? Because last year we didn\u2019t hear anything about this, because obviously things were going well, and we were also seen as the leaders.<\/p>\n READ:\u00a0One per club: Big Eight stars most likely to leave in January, including Kovacic, Jesus and Richarlison<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThis year, when things are not going as well as we want for the last couple of weeks, then we\u2019re not doing our job properly. So that\u2019s the life we live. We feel that responsibility. We want to lead by example.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen there are difficult moments, I try to help my teammates,\u201d Van Dijk added. \u201cI try to put them in front of me and want to make them perform in the best possible shape.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople question loads of stuff, especially when you lose. There are so many platforms nowadays that everyone can say whatever they like and it gets blown up.\u201d<\/p>\n During their recent run of losses, Man Utd legend Rooney thought that the poor form of Van Dijk and Mohamed Salah could be down to them signing new deals earlier this year.<\/p>\n Rooney said on his\u00a0BBC podcast: \u201cNo one has seen this coming, it\u2019s hit them quick, it\u2019s hit them hard and I think they\u2019re struggling to find a way out of it.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a time where the manager and the leaders in the team need to figure it out very quickly. Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah, they\u2019ve signed new deals but I don\u2019t think they\u2019ve really led that team this season.<\/p>\n \u201cI think body language tells you a lot, and I think we\u2019re seeing slightly different body language from the two of them.<\/p>\n \u201cThey are the top two players in that team and if their body language is not right, that affects everyone else.<\/p>\n \u201cI might be wrong on this, but if I was a Liverpool fan or the manager, that would be a big concern for me.\u201d<\/p>\n MORE ON LIVERPOOL FROM F365\u2026<\/strong> Hitting back at those comments specifically, Van Dijk added: \u201cWell, I didn\u2019t hear him last year.<\/p>\n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t hurt me, to be honest. I feel like, just to come back to this particular player, and this obviously a legend, big player of the game \u2013 I can say all the only positive things but I feel like that comment, I would say it\u2019s a bit of a lazy criticism.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s my personal opinion. It\u2019s easy to blame the other players, but he knows as well as everyone else we do it together, trying to help each and every one of us to try to get out of this. Like I said, last year when things go well you don\u2019t hear that at all. It is what it is.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have to do that job as well, so it is what it is. It\u2019s part and parcel when everyone has an opinion and we have to deal with it.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd there are no hard feelings, by the way. I don\u2019t take it personal whatsoever, but I feel like that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk has hit back at Manchester United legend Wayne Rooney over his \u201clazy criticism\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,794,19,17,11,12,1009,15,16,5,795,7,8,19619,3802],"class_list":{"0":"post-159802","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-home-page","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-liverpool","20":"tag-main-news","21":"tag-mainnews","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-premier-league","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topstories","26":"tag-virgil-van-dijk","27":"tag-wayne-rooney"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115483709572837497","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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