Van Dijk heaps praise on ‘quality’ duo after Como friendly | OneFootball

Virgil van Dijk praised both Liverpool’s new centre-backs, Jeremy Jacquet and Ronald Araujo, after their 2-0 victory over Como at Anfield.

Jeremy Jacquet signed for Liverpool in January, but was loaned back to Rennes for the remainder of the season. Ronald Araujo joined him last week on a loan deal from Barcelona.

Both players played 45 minutes alongside Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk in the friendly. Jacquet was on the scoresheet in the match, which was his first minutes for any club since February because of a shoulder injury he suffered playing in France.

“I think Jacquet did well, same as Ronald,” Van Dijk told reporters after the match “It’s a good start. I think he came out of it a bit tired, but it’s obviously absolutely normal when you’re playing your first 45 minutes after such a long time.

“Now it’s down to him to recover, and we’ll be back on the pitch tomorrow morning, and then we’re working towards Newcastle St James’ Park, where we’ll be at the top of our game.”

Andoni Iraola became Liverpool manager this summer after Arne Slot left the club. Since then he has taken charge of four pre-season matches before this one, winning two, but also losing the two most recent matches against Leeds and Monaco.

The Spaniard is known for his high-intensity, high-pressing football. Van Dijk spoke about how his teammates are adapting to playing under their new boss.

What I see is that no team in world football can play full intensity for 90 minutes,” he said. “What you have to do is, at a certain point you’re going to have some moments where the opposition is going to be a bit tired, and then it’s down to us to make sure that we are compact and find the right moment to press again, and I think we did that much better than we did the last game.

“Obviously everyone is eager to go and to press and keep their intensity up, but it’s a team game and we need everyone together in order to be able to do that. If you do that at the right time and the right moment, then you don’t need to run as much as we sometimes do. That means at times when there is a throw-in, where there is a free kick, you have to maybe play it even quicker in order to keep the ball moving. But it’s a process ,and we’re working on that. Today there was definitely improvement in my opinion.”