Liverpool and Manchester United will renew their rivalries again on Sunday. The trip to Old Trafford though will see Virgil van Dijk follow in the footsteps of one of his childhood heroes.
The Reds will be looking for revenge after being knocked out of the FA Cup just a few weeks ago by United. The defeat ended Liverpool’s hopes of a quadruple this season, although it remains in the hunt for the Premier League title.
With Arsenal and Manchester City playing on Saturday, the pressure will be on Liverpool to respond to its title rivals. With just eight games remaining and the Reds leading the way, they can ill afford another slip up at Old Trafford.
One keen observer will almost certainly be former United defender Jaap Stam. Not only was he a Premier League and Champions League winner during his time at Old Trafford, but he also revealed himself to be a big fan of Van Dijk recently.
Appearing on an episode of The Overlap alongside former United teammates Gary Neville and Roy Keane, as well as Jamie Carragher and Ian Wright, Stam was asked which defender from Premier League history he’d pick as his perfect center-back partner.
“I’d keep it Dutch, I’d play alongside Virgil van Dijk,” he explained. “It would be a good partnership. I like the others [Tony Adams, Sol Campbell and John Terry], but Virgil is a very good player.”
Explaining some of the harsh criticism Van Dijk sometimes faces in his homeland, Stam said: “The thinking is the communication, his coaching, his leadership, is not doing enough on the pitch. They think he needs to do more, especially when the team is not playing well, that he needs to be the player to tell them what to do and put them in position so they can make a difference.
“They say he’s not doing that and I find that hard to see that on the pitch, from the television. I think he’s trying to but I don’t know if it is fair, to be honest.”
Now, speaking after being announced as an ambassador for Expedia, Van Dijk has responded to the praise from his fellow countryman.
“Growing up as a young defender watching the national team, Jaap Stam was ‘The Rock’,” he told the Mirror. “He was always there, he was intimidating, when you looked at him on TV it felt like he was almost three metres tall!
“And he’d run through a brick wall and still be fine. It would have been a pleasure to play with him. He was an incredible defender, a huge name in world football, and hopefully I can be the same.”
Speaking about Sunday’s trip to Old Trafford, Van Dijk added: “It’s always a very tough game, an intense battle.
“You think of the history of the club, the results, the games that they’ve played and the successes that both clubs have had in the history of football. It won’t be any different on Sunday, it will be a tough one again, but we’ll give it everything we have and see what we can get out of it.”
