Virgil van Dijk produced another poor performance in a lacklustre season for the Liverpool captain, this time for the Netherlands, as his successor for club and country has been named.<\/p>\n
Van Dijk<\/a><\/strong> has been criticised \u2013 along with most other Liverpool stars \u2013 for his recent displays for the Reds, who have lost five of their last six Premier League games as manager Arne Slot struggles to get anything like the best of a squad boosted by \u00a3420m-worth of new summer additions having won the title last season.<\/p>\n The Reds captain has come out swinging to defend himself against Wayne Rooney<\/a><\/strong> and other Premier League pundits this season, but the Dutch media have now hit out at the 34-year-old following the Netherlands\u2019 1-1 draw with Poland on Friday.<\/p>\n READ MORE: Five Liverpool stars who need to be replaced with upgrades, including Virgil van Dijk and Mo Salah<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Ronald Koeman\u2019s side missed the chance to ensure qualification for next summer\u2019s World Cup, though Memphis Depay\u2019s equalise has all but secured their place as they hold a three-point lead over Poland at the top of Group G, as well as a 12-goal advantage, heading into their final game against Lithuania.<\/p>\n Football Oranje\u00a0gave Van Dijk a 5.5 out of 10, claiming he was \u201ccaught out for the goal with his lack of pace\u201d and \u201cbooted the ball out of play at times when trying to play forward.\u201d<\/p>\n De Telegraaf said<\/a><\/strong> he was \u201cpositioned incorrectly,\u201d while AD claimed he \u201cwasn\u2019t razor-sharp and \u201cprobably would have done better to close the gap.\u201d<\/p>\n After the game, Koeman refused to name names but claimed \u201cseveral players\u201d were at fault for Jakub Kaminski\u2019s goal.<\/p>\n He said: \u201cI watched the goal again. You\u2019re five against two, and several players aren\u2019t doing what they\u2019re supposed to.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course, they should never, ever score a goal from that. Things happen that simply shouldn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not that one player is lacking. We\u2019re doing that here with four or five people, compared to two.\u201d<\/p>\n Micky van de Ven started at left-back for the Netherlands, but former Chelsea defender Khalid\u00a0Boulahrouz believes the 24-year-old \u2013 who\u2019s been in fine form for Tottenham this season \u2013 would be the perfect long-term replacement for Van Dijk for both club and country.<\/p>\n \u201cI think he\u2019s the ideal successor to Virgil van Dijk, both in the Dutch national team and at Liverpool,\u201d the former Netherlands international told ESPN NL. \u201cAnd Liverpool aren\u2019t crazy: if you\u2019re looking for a world-class left centre-back and you have the money, you\u2019ll quickly end up with Van de Ven.<\/p>\n \u201cThe same goes for the Dutch national team. I think Koeman has long since realized that Van Dijk\u2019s successor is already out there.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s (Van de Ven) really outperforming them. He\u2019s physically strong and incredibly quick. Opponents know that, so they don\u2019t even try to get past him anymore.<\/p>\n \u201cHe could still do better on the ball; he makes the occasional blunder. But overall, I think he\u2019s fantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n MORE ON VIRGIL VAN DIJK FROM FOOTBALL365<\/strong> Boulahrouz has defended Van Dijk amid the criticism aimed at the Liverpool captain this term, but wonders how long the veteran defender \u2013 who signed a new two-year contract in April \u2013 can continue to perform at the highest level.<\/p>\n \u201cVirgil is still undisputed in the Dutch national team,\u201d he said. \u201cEven though Liverpool haven\u2019t been performing quite as well lately. Diogo Jota\u2019s passing has had a huge impact on the squad.<\/p>\n \u201cIn addition, many new players have joined. That has an impact, and you can see that with Van Dijk. But despite that, he remains a world-class player.<\/p>\n \u201cThe question, of course, is what Virgil will do after the World Cup. Playing in the Premier League for years has taken its toll. You might long for a bit of a break.\u201d<\/p>\n Liverpool teammate Ryan Gravenberch was also far from his best against Poland and was branded \u201clazy\u201d by former Nottingham Forest and Celtic striker\u00a0Pierre van Hooijdonk.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s laziness, because you think the ball won\u2019t fall there anyway,\u201d he said on NOS via Voetbal International as he watched clips of Gravenberch. \u201cWhen you have a lot of possession against those kinds of teams, you actually have a false sense of dominance.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Virgil van Dijk produced another poor performance in a lacklustre season for the Liverpool captain, this time for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8815],"tags":[748,393,163,4884,179,12,16,2970,15,1465],"class_list":{"0":"post-573705","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-liverpool","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-front-page","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-liverpool","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-uncategorized","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-virgil-van-dijk"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573705","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=573705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\ud83d\udc49 Liverpool told it was mistake not to offload Reds star \u2018fading fast\u2019 as he\u2019s \u2018past sell-by date\u2019<\/a><\/strong>
\ud83d\udc49\u00a0Liverpool: Howard Webb issues response to \u2018serious concerns\u2019 as Van Dijk decision \u2018not unreasonable\u2019<\/a><\/strong>
\ud83d\udc49 Did Van Dijk aim a thickly-veiled dig at Salah after Liverpool defeat to Man City?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n