Van Dijk slammed by Dutch hero for Liverpool slump – ‘I’m not going to scream at the violinist’ | OneFootball

Ruud Gullit has used a bizarre and flawed analogy to criticise Virgil van Dijk for making “a lot of mistakes” for Liverpool this season.

Van Dijk has been widely regarded as one of the best centre-backs in the world since joining Liverpool from Southampton in January 2018.

But having signed a new two-year contract in the summer on the back of captaining the Reds to their second Premier League title, Van Dijk has made a number of blunders this term – never actually his fault though, of course.

Gullit has hit out at the 34-year-old, though we’re not at all convinced by his orchestra analogy or Van Dijk’s role as “director” of said orchestra.

“I have been critical of Virgil van Dijk several times, because he’s the Liverpool captain,” he said. “Put it this way, if there is an orchestra where the violinist is not performing well, I’m not going to scream at the violinist, I’m going to be pointing the finger at the director.

“He is in front of his performers and is responsible for when something goes wrong.

“I rate Van Dijk very highly, but he has made a lot of mistakes this season, with a lot of strange errors like the handball against PSV Eindhoven and the miskick at Bournemouth.

“These are things that I’ve never seen before from him.

“I really hope that Van Dijk sees and addresses these errors, knows that he has not been playing well, and can return to his best soon.”

Van Dijk insisted earlier this week that he and his teammates are determined to turn things around at Anfield.

Van Dijk said: “The matter of fact is, we are Premier League champions, and we have not been good enough on a consistent basis. That’s just a fact.

“The criticism comes, and that’s something we just have to accept. We just have to keep going.

“I don’t think there has been any question about [togetherness] internally. I don’t think there’s any disharmony.

“There are obviously challenges that happen and everyone is dealing with certain situations in a different way.

“It’s also about dealing with it together and how we are going to fix it and change things around.

“That’s something that makes you stronger as a team and if you come out of it like we should do hopefully as we have the quality then I think it can only improve you as a team and as a player as well.”

Liverpool completed the signing of Jeremy Jacquet from Rennes in a £60m deal on deadline day, and Arne Slot suggested ahead of the Reds’ Premier League clash with Manchester City that the 20-year-old has been signed with a view to him replacing Van Dijk in the future.

“Nothing that’s done over here is ever from panic,” he said.

“It’s always a long-term idea or something that has been thought about for a long time. By not only one person, but by multiple people.

“Of course we are aware of the fact that Virgil will not play for this club for 10 more years, but he has a one-and-a-half-year contract left so he will be with us for that period of time and maybe even longer if he keeps staying as fit as he is now.

“Because I’ve said it before, what a compliment to him at his age to play every three days, not only for our club but also for his country, for seven or eight months already.

“So yeah, hopefully he can stay as fit as he is for multiple years.

“But this club, we are not stupid, we do know that somewhere in the upcoming years there is life for this club without Virgil.

“So you are now talking about Virgil, but I can say this for every position: this club is not only thinking about the short-term future, but also the mid-to-long-term future, in the decisions we make.”