{"id":541841,"date":"2025-11-01T10:32:27","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T10:32:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/541841\/"},"modified":"2025-11-01T10:32:27","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T10:32:27","slug":"virgil-van-dijk-made-disappointed-admission-and-blamed-liverpool-team-mate-for-result","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/541841\/","title":{"rendered":"Virgil van Dijk made ‘disappointed’ admission and blamed Liverpool team-mate for result"},"content":{"rendered":"

Liverpool were held to a 2-2 draw in their last game against Aston Villa and captain Virgil van Dijk slammed a team-mate for the dropped points\"VirgilVirgil van Dijk referenced a mistake by one of his Liverpool teammate after a game last season(Image: Visionhaus, Visionhaus\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk<\/a> pointed the finger at one of his teammates following the Reds’ failure to claim victory in their previous clash with Aston Villa<\/a>. The club welcome Unai Emery’s side to Anfield<\/a> this weekend as Liverpool<\/a> look to return to winning ways in the Premier League<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Back in February, Mohamed Salah<\/a> put Arne Slot’s<\/a> side ahead at Villa Park, though the hosts swiftly hit back with two goals from Youri Tielemans and Ollie Watkins before the interval. Trent Alexander-Arnold dragged Liverpool back on level terms shortly past the hour mark, but substitute Darwin Nunez<\/a> wasted the Reds’ best opportunity to secure all three points.<\/p>\n

The forward was presented with a gilt-edged chance<\/a> minutes after coming off the bench when Dominik Szoboszlai managed to get behind Villa’s backline. Goalkeeper Emi Martinez focused on Szoboszlai, who slid the ball across the penalty area to leave Nunez with an open goal to aim at, but the striker sent his effort sailing over the bar from six yards out<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Liverpool were forced to settle for a draw at the final whistle, stretching their advantage at the top to eight points. However, Van Dijk believed the Reds had allowed an extra two points to escape their grasp, alluding to Nunez’s glaring miss during his post-match interview.<\/p>\n

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“We are a bit disappointed but we fight. We had chances to win the game, took a bit of a risk at the end – so it got more open at times,” Van Dijk said. “In possession we did quite well, created good opportunities to score the second. Disappointing to concede from a set-piece. We tried everything and unfortunately it wasn’t enough for three points.<\/p>\n

“We should have scored 3-2, but credit to Aston Villa, they made it very difficult. We have a very tough one on the weekend again, then we play Newcastle, our focus now will be on Man City, a very difficult game, we know that. We have done everything in our power to win games – and the focus will be that on Sunday.”<\/p>\n

\"DarwinDarwin Nunez missed from close range against Aston Villa in February(Image: Chris Brunskill\/Fantasista\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Liverpool manager Slot also expressed his disappointment with Nunez<\/a> following the match, though his frustration focused on the striker’s effort levels after his miss. The boss maintained he had no concerns with Nunez failing to score, but felt the forward had allowed the moment to impact his entire performance.<\/p>\n

“It is not the chance but the 20 minutes afterwards that I will talk to Darwin about,” Slot explained. “Yes, I will tell him that [he still has a major part to play] as well. I will tell him that you can miss a chance but you cannot miss out on work rate.<\/p>\n

“That is the life of a striker, he will miss chances and score some. It is part of the job of a No.9, you miss when people expect you to score. It is not part of the job of a No.9 to slow down in work rate. And that is something we will talk about.”<\/p>\n

\"ArneArne Slot criticised Darwin Nunez for other aspects of his performance against Villa(Image: Catherine Ivill – AMA\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

He continued: “I can accept misses but what is harder for me to accept is his behaviour after the chance. It got too much in his head, he was not the usual Darwin who works his backside off and makes sure he helps the team. He was too disappointed he missed that.<\/p>\n

“I always truly believe it is always best to have Wata’s (Wataru Endo) mindset. For the whole season he does not complain, keeps on going and keeps on going, whenever we need him he is ready. That is very difficult and there are not many players that can do this.”<\/p>\n

Nunez was given a more rotational role during his only campaign under Slot, making just eight starts across 30 league appearances and netting five goals. The 26-year-old was sold to Al-Hilal<\/a> for an initial \u00a346million during the summer transfer window.<\/p>\n

Liverpool will be hoping to capitalise on their opportunities against Villa this time as the defending champions look to halt their four-match losing streak in the Premier League. The Reds will face a challenging Villa side, who have won their last four league games following a sluggish start to the season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liverpool were held to a 2-2 draw in their last game against Aston Villa and captain Virgil van…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8815],"tags":[1121,422,748,8904,393,4884,179,763,16,15,1465],"class_list":{"0":"post-541841","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-liverpool","8":"tag-arne-slot","9":"tag-aston-villa-fc","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-darwin-nunez","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-liverpool","15":"tag-liverpool-fc","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-virgil-van-dijk"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115473989974086971","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}