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Liverpool face a new reality that they and their fans have always feared. The Reds will have to cope without Virgil van Dijk’s colossal presence on their baseline for the foreseeable future, and possibly the remainder of the 2020/21 season.
And while his playing ability is obviously the biggest loss, there is also the fact that no games are normally ever lost.
The 3-0 home win over Southampton in September 2018 was the last league game he failed to complete before the Merseyside derby, and the only league game Van Dijk missed entirely for the Reds was in his first month in the club. He even appeared in the Carabao Cup this season as well.
We are at the dawn of a new era for Liverpool, and no one associated with the club will accept.
It is also difficult to know which of the three realistic options for a central defense position would be the best duo going forward, as it has almost always been ‘Van Dijk plus one’ during his time at the club.
Perhaps the obvious starting point for considering the issue is the 0-0 draw with Bayern Munich at Anfield in 2019, which was part of Liverpool’s triumphant path to Champions League glory.
It was the only game in the league or in Europe that Van Dijk missed in 2018/19, thanks to a penalty.
The central defensive duo that night was Fabinho and Joel Matip. They also did well as they restricted the illustrious visitors to very few attempts on goal.
According to FBRefBayern only had eight shots that night, with only one on target. Of the 49 games they played in all competitions that season, they only had fewer in total once, in the second leg with Liverpool, and never put less effort into the goal.
But while those facts bode well, the truth is that most English teams offer a different type of threat than the current European champions. To succeed in the Premier League, it is vital to be strong in the air.
This is one of the reasons that Van Dijk has been such a powerful asset to Liverpool.
Among players who played at least 100 top flight duels in 2019/20, the Reds’ number four had the highest winning percentage, and has been in the top three in the division for every season he has been with. the club (by Fantasy Football Scout).
While none of the available options can match Van Dijk’s aerial win rate of 74.6 per cent with Liverpool, it is Matip next in line at 70.9 per cent.
That’s the second-highest percentage of successful matchups between Reds center-backs, past and present, in the Jurgen Klopp era, and comfortably ahead of Fabinho (56.6) and Joe Gomez (56.4).
Liverpool’s Cameroonian center-back also has the upper hand in terms of aversion to making defensive mistakes, at least those that Opta records as leading to shots, and this even includes having a better record than Van Dijk.
Liverpool defender Virgil van Dijk is set for a period on the sidelines due to an injury sustained during the Merseyside derby. Virgil will face surgery and a rehabilitation process before he can return for the Reds.
We will of course cover the story from start to finish, with all the updates, until van Dijk is back on the field in a Reds jersey.
Here’s how you can not only keep up with VVD’s journey back to first-team action, but how you can send your support to the recovering defender.
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Matip has only scored two in the Premier League since joining the club, at the rate of one for every 3,391 minutes played. This is about half of what happens with Van Dijk, who has been wrong every 1687 minutes. Gomez has also performed better than the former Southampton man, with one every 1,906 minutes, while Fabinho’s average is 1,492.
But the truth is, we have little idea how the midfielder will perform in central defense in the long run.
A couple of domestic cup matches aside, to date he has had the aforementioned Bayern match, the recent 2-0 win at Stamford Bridge, and a 1-0 win at Brighton in January 2019. It’s a positive sample of evidence, even if it is very small.
And the final 79 minutes of the derby were the first in the Premier League where Gomez also teamed up with Matip, so there’s not much to do there either.
They appear to be the best potential partnership today thanks to their experience, but Klopp has a lot to ponder.
Kopites will be on the lookout for team news from Amsterdam, especially after Matip suffered a new injury at the weekend resulting in a hospital scan on Wednesday night with great interest.
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