Virgil van Dijk has been accused of throwing Milos Kerkez under the bus with his public displays of frustration towards his Liverpool team-mate. Kerkez has endured a tough start to life at Anfield following his summer arrival from Bournemouth. He is regularly singled out for his underwhelming performances and struggled again in the midweek defeat to Crystal Palace.
Gary Neville is among those to have criticised Kerkez, saying that he looked like a ‘youth team player’ in last month’s defeat to Chelsea. Van Dijk has also shown his displeasure at times, with the Liverpool skipper often barking at Kerkez during matches. Craig Burley, the former Chelsea and Celtic midfielder, believes the Dutchman is taking the wrong approach.
“You can maybe look at the full-backs beside them and Kerkez has definitely struggled, but I have mentioned several times that Van Dijk is not helping him as a captain,” he told ESPN.
“He is really throwing him under the bus a little bit with his gesticulating to him in front of the crowd. As a young player, it just drains your confidence. But there is no doubt himself and [Ibrahima] Konate have not played well.”
Burley also took aim at Arne Slot, accusing him of ‘talking gobbledygook’ and making excuses for Liverpool‘s problems. He pointed out that it is ultimately Slot’s responsibility to turn things around.
“We all said this guy speaks normally, pretty truthfully and with a lot of common sense,” added Burley. “What we are seeing here is a manager who, really for the first time in his Liverpool career, is being asked a lot of questions.
“He’s going down a path that a lot of managers go down and he’s talking gobbledygook. He’s talking about right-back and [Jeremie] Frimpong is out and is having to play [Conor] Bradley three times in a week. Back in the day, Saturday-Wednesday-Saturday was the norm. That’s not a big deal, it shouldn’t be for these super-fit players.
“He’s played [Dominik] Szoboszlai there and played Joe Gomez there hundreds of times. There is a lot of stuff the manager is trying to make an excuse because he can’t figure it out.
“He can’t figure out his best team, can’t get Florian Wirtz in the side and working so he took him out. He made a big boo-boo against Chelsea and Man Utd by playing Alexander Isak ahead of [Hugo] Ekitike and most people shared that sentiment.
“When Arne Slot went down to Stamford Bridge and got played off the park, outworked and outfought, Chelsea had more injuries than Liverpool.
“Chelsea had a makeshift back four and two centre-halves who had never played together or not many times. This is not a Liverpool thing, Arne Slot needs to figure this out fast.”