Liverpool new boy is ‘getting swallowed up’ and Van Dijk is making it worse – pundit
Former Premier League midfielder Craig Burley feels a Liverpool new boy is “getting swallowed up” and captain Virgil van Dijk isn’t helping that.
Liverpool spent almost £450million on new talent in the summer. They made additions in attack, midfield, defence and in net, covering essentially the whole pitch.
Milos Kerkez was one of a couple of big-name signings who already had a good deal of Premier League experience, having played two seasons with Bournemouth.
But he has struggled to have the same impact at Anfield as he had at the Vitality, only once gaining a rating higher than a seven on SofaScore, with most in the low sixes.
According to former Premier League midfielder Burley, Kerkez’s struggles to adapt at Liverpool are not being helped by his captain, Van Dijk, who clearly remonstrated with him during the recent 2-1 loss to Manchester United – the fourth straight loss in all competitions.
“Virgil van Dijk, to me, is not leading at the moment. He’s blaming. Kerkez is having a bad time, there’s no doubt about it,” Burley said on ESPN.
“He’s getting swallowed up by the pressure of going in with these big players in this huge football club with these big expectations, but I don’t think that it helps when your captain’s looking at him every two minutes and blaming him or digging him out.
“Even at the end, the clearance that comes off Kerkez’s face. What’s he supposed to do? He’s tucking in behind Van Dijk.
“Van Dijk’s turning around and he’s gesturing to him. The crowd see it and I just don’t think that helps the situation.”
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Van Dijk himself was not happy with how the game panned out, saying afterwards: “I think we conceded a very sloppy second goal. We worked so hard to get back into the game and we created great opportunities to score the winner, but if you concede a second goal like that, that is the disappointing part.
“If you look at the game as a whole, we were far too rushed. I think they were very patient they didn’t press us high but they didn’t let us on the ball.
“We still created many opportunities to score, but the reality is that we lost. It is an interesting time because we have to stick together, not just us as players but as a club and fans who want us to win.”
