‘The energy he brings…’ – Virgil van Dijk blown away by ‘incredible’ Liverpool teammate | OneFootball

Virgil van Dijk has praised one of his Liverpool teammates for the ‘incredible’ energy that he brings to Arne Slot’s side.

After a dismal October, the Reds have gotten this month off to a strong start with morale-boosting wins over Aston Villa and Real Madrid, both of which saw us keep a clean sheet (having only had two in our previous 15 games this season).

One of the standout performers on both of those victories was Dominik Szoboszlai, who attributed the defensive improvement to a newly-instated rule within the squad to get bodies behind the ball within five seconds of losing possession.

Van Dijk praises Szoboszlai’s ‘incredible’ energy

After the win on Tuesday night, Van Dijk spoke highly of the Hungarian midfielder’s qualities and has encouraged him to maintain those high standards for the rest of the campaign, having provided the assist for Alexis Mac Allister’s winner against Los Blancos.

The Liverpool captain said: “Dom is very important. The energy he brings on the pitch is incredible. The quality that he has is outstanding. He’s learning in each and every game. He’s developing into the player that we all feel like he could be, and he’s showing it for his country as well.

“He just needs to keep doing it for the rest of the season. So far he’s had a great start to the season. Now he just needs to keep going, keep his head down and keep performing well.”

(Photo by Carl Recine/Getty Images)

Szoboszlai has been outstanding for Liverpool all season

Even when Liverpool were struggling over the past few weeks, Szoboszlai’s consistently classy performances offered a welcome positive, and he’s stepped it up even more in the past couple of games.

The Liverpool Echo‘s Ian Doyle hailed ‘another superb showing’ from the 25-year-old against Real Madrid, awarding him 9/10 in his post-match player ratings, and the midfielder’s statistics from the win last night illustrate how influential he was.

As per Sofascore, he had the most shots on target of any Reds player (four) and could easily have had a hat-trick were it not for Thibaut Courtois’ brilliance, while he executed three key passes and picked out a teammate with all three of his crosses.

Van Dijk has rightly recognised Szoboszlai’s outstanding displays for the Premier League champions, while also performing his captain’s duty of keeping him grounded and urging him not to drop his standards as the big games keep on coming for Slot’s side.

The Hungarian is most certainly a prime candidate for Liverpool’s player of the season so far, and hopefully he can reach even higher levels as the campaign progresses.

You can watch Van Dijk’s post-match thoughts in full below, via Empire of the Kop on YouTube: