Virgil van Dijk has been a driving force in Liverpool’s success since joining from Southampton, but Jurgen Klopp is now without his star player
Liverpool have suffered a major setback ahead of their match against Chelsea. The Blues will host Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool on Tuesday evening, as both clubs look to launch a late – and ambitious – push for the top four.
It has been revealed that Virgil van Dijk was left out of Liverpool’s squad to face West Ham United due to illness. The Athletic reports that the 31-year-old defender missed training in the run-up to the game, ruling him out of contention.
Despite returning from an ACL injury last season, he’s been a regular in the Liverpool lineup. Van Dijk started every Premier League and Champions League game this season in preparation for the World Cup, leading his country to the quarterfinals in Qatar.
After that, he only had eight days to recover before playing three times in eight days when he returned in the new year. Van Dijk later suffered a hamstring injury that sidelined him for six weeks.
The Dutchman has recently come under fire for failing to live up to the lofty standards he set himself a few years ago. Van Dijk, on the other hand, revealed in an interview with the Daily Star how the sudden
But, after recovering from a knee injury, he said, “I played all the Premier League games because everybody wants to be out there, and I want to be out there.” “That’s what I’m aiming for. What got me was that I was playing too many games at once.
“When it’s game day, I want to play, and I’ll do everything I can to play, but before the World Cup, I could have thought, ‘Let’s rest a little bit in order to be ready.'” But I didn’t because I want to play and be influential for this football club because I love it and work hard every day to make it successful.
“But it caught up with me, my body, I’m not a robot, and I think going into the World Cup, having the World Cup, doing nothing for a week, and then coming back was perhaps not the best decision.
“But, in the end, these things happen; they could not have happened and I would still be playing. Everything that happened happened for a reason, and these six weeks allowed me to reflect while also allowing my knee to settle and prepare for the rest of the season.
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