PSV player admits he pushed Virgil van Dijk prior to handball incident in snide post-match taunt | OneFootball

PSV Eindhoven captain Jerdy Schouten owned up to pushing Virgil van Dijk immediately prior to the incident which led to the Liverpool captain giving away an early penalty on Wednesday night.

Just five minutes into the teams’ Champions League fixture, the Reds centre-back was penalised for a crazy handball whilst attempting to defend a corner kick, with many reporters at Anfield astonished at what they saw.

The 34-year-old complained to referee Alejandro Hernandez about being fouled, but the Spanish official wasn’t for turning and Ivan Perisic duly dispatched the resulting spot kick for the first of his team’s four goals as they humiliated Arne Slot’s side.

Schouten taunts Van Dijk and owns up to pushing Reds captain

After the match, Schouten was speaking to Dutch broadcaster Ziggo Sport when he admitted that he shoved Van Dijk just before the handball, before aiming a taunt at his Netherlands teammate with a smug grin on his face.

The PSV captain said (via Voetbal International): “I gave him a very small push, but when you’re as big as Virgil, you should be able to handle that, right?”

Image via TNT Sports

Van Dijk handball was daft, but Schouten’s jibe was unnecessary

It was daft from Van Dijk to raise his arm in the air so unsubtly whilst defending a corner kick, but replays showed that Schouten did have a hold of the Liverpool captain as the ball was swung into the penalty area.

For the PSV midfielder to publicly own up to pushing his compatriot and treat it as a badge of honour smacks of contempt, and one might wonder whether he’d have been that smug if it were immediately before an international break when the pair would convene for Netherlands duty.

The contact was minimal, and the Reds skipper was guilty of a baffling headloss in that moment, but players shouldn’t be bragging about committing fouls on an opponent, and the 28-year-old’s post-match comments felt needlessly snide.

That said, Schouten and his teammates were full value for their win at Anfield, and what happened over the penalty incident mustn’t detract from the frightening scale of the problems which have led to Arne Slot’s job security being called into question.

If Liverpool can do enough to make it into the Champions League knockout rounds (they’re still on course to advance) and come up against PSV once more in the spring, they might just recall the midfielder’s post-match comments from last night and fancy a dose of revenge.

You can watch Slot’s full post-PSV press conference via Empire of the Kop on YouTube: