Liverpool’s Virgil van Dijk has forced one pundit into a U-turn. Ruud Gullit, a former Netherlands and Chelsea midfielder, has confessed that Liverpool’s skipper is back on top form ahead of the next international break.
In October 2020, Van Dijk suffered a cruciate ligament injury which kept him out of action for eight months. When he came back, some people questioned if he could play as well as he did before his injury.
Last season, like most of the Liverpool team, his performance wasn’t as good. But Jürgen Klopp, Liverpool’s manager, believed in the 32-year-old and made him captain after Jordan Henderson left at the end of the season.
This season, Van Dijk is playing really well again and is helping Liverpool compete with Arsenal and Manchester City at the top of the Premier League. Yet it has taken until now to silence the doubters.
Gullit was one of the people who criticized Van Dijk last season. Voetbal International reported that the 61-year-old said Van Dijk thought he was ‘better than the rest of the squad’, while De Telegraaf carried quotes where the former Chelsea man accused the Liverpool defender of having ‘no leadership skills’.
But when asked if he had changed his mind, Gullit said he had. Stubbornly sticking by his previous critique, he nonetheless acknowledged an improvement.
“And rightly so,” Gullit said when asked about his previous comments criticizing Van Dijk. “He didn’t play well either, but he is growing back to his peak now. That’s the level you ask of him. That’s all I ask. He is also very good.”
Gullit then said: “I wouldn’t have criticized him if I didn’t think he was a top player, then you have no use for it. Now you do. And he is there again. He passes well, and is more direct going forward.
“I think he just suffered from that bad injury. He also didn’t play well for a long time. If you see that, you have to say so. Now it’s different, then I say it too.”
It’s little wonder Van Dijk was unable to resist taking a shot at his detractors after scoring a last-minute winner in Liverpool’s recent Carabao Cup success against Chelsea, Gullit’s former side. “They thought I was finished”, he remarked in the dressing room — a comment he has since admitted he ‘shouldn’t have said’, even though he had surely more than earned his moment of triumph.
The defender is getting ready to captain his country in the European Championships this summer. Right now, he’s with his national team, getting ready to play friendly matches against Scotland and Germany in the next week.
Liverpool.com says: Gullit has somehow managed to do a 180 without admitting that he was ever wrong. Isn’t it convenient for the player-turned-pundit that Van Dijk’s form has changed so drastically?
