Virgil van Dijk | Performances

[tomaldinho1]

Eras aside, there are few setups that ask more of center backs than Klopps Liverpool.

Constant high line and most attacking full backs in the league. Somewhat compensated for by a compact and combative midfield, but still, so many defensive actions to be made with no support near by and so much of the field behind you to defend.

Lovren, as an example, just couldn't hack that. Excellent defender in a compact low block with less space behind to defend and more proximity to the other defenders. A nightmare in the kind of setup Klopp preferred.

Terry in comparison had an even more compact midfield in front of him, far less attacking fullbacks, sat much deeper and relied greatly on Carvalho to chase down any runs in behind whenever they were pushed up.

Van Dijk would have been fine in Mourinho's Chelsea setup. Terry would be torn apart in a Klopp back four.

Which is why Ferdinand for me is the only center back comparable to Van Dijk.

This just depends on their role though. I do find it weird how much VVD is getting the praise over Konate this season when you look at their stats, both have been excellent but the aggressive/pusher CB has a much harder job. What is crazy when you look at their direct comparison is VVD essentially never tackles (hence why he is never dribbled past) he averages 1 tackle every 4 games via Fbref (as an aside if ever we wanted a stat to show how football has changed that might be it). Konate, to his credit tackles more AND wins the ball more often AND wins a higher percentage of headers. Quite impressive when you think the higher the number the harder it is to keep a high percentage.

Was it easier for Terry? He faced far more crosses, more 1 v 1 duels versus strikers, more action in general but because he was deeper and therefore not running as much you think it was easier? He was a product of his time. Football now is harder for CBs technically but physically its a cakewalk if you are in a top team that can keep possession when needed and who defend from the front. Look at Stones (VVD clearly vastly better than him) he'd get brutalised if he played 10 years ago because everything was so direct and far more contested into the CBs. Football is so different now, CBs in the top teams barely have to tackle/be combative because of how different the game is.

I do agree it makes more sense to group the CBs - so you compare Terry with Adams, Ramos, Maldini, Puyol, Vidic and then Rio with VVD, Varane, Nesta, Pique because it is almost a completely different role. Within that there are obviously differences with how their teams play, but the classic combination almost always has one sitter and one who pushes. The CBs tasked with pushing on get criticised much more because even if they come out and win the ball 9 times, if they get skinned once and the other team score, people call them rash and talk about how they cost their team. The other CB never has that issue because they rarely enter those kind of high risk situations.

 

[roonster09]

So a bit like saying Ferdinand and Terry played across Bergkamp then, given he was also basically a decade past his prime.

Dont know about Terry but Rio started his career in the late 90s when Bergkam was not even 30. He played against Bergkamp when Bergkamp was 27-28. if that was him past his peak then fair enough.

 

[roonster09]

I agree Ronaldo was past his peak but he was still third top scorer in the league that season, so that’s a big exaggeration.

He was nowhere near his best, he was past it. He scored goals but still nowhere near his best.

 

[Cassidy]

Im pretty sure that liverpools defensive record in 19/20 is second only to the park 2 buses in everygame chelsea 04/05 side.

Mane,salah and firmino is the best front 3 in terms of goals per game.Klopp's system used a much higher line that asked much morw of the centre backs and goalkeeper.It was the opposite of mourinho's approach.

If it was not for cheating,liverpool would have won 3 titles,a ucl,100 point season and gone unbeaten,including a 2019 prem and ucl double,and as much as we hate them,i cannot stand cheating far more.

You are wrong about Liverpools defensive record

 

[giggs-beckham]

Of course they could. They were the best of their respective eras, and obviously had enough natural talent that they could've become professional footballers if they were born into the current era.

Btw, when you bring up Maradona. Do you think any player could be the best in the world today if they were doing drugs and and drinking alcohol in their playing days, like he was? They'd be spent after 20 minutes in any match. There's too much bias in favour of players of the past when making comparisons. Messi was already better than peak Maradona in 2009, for example. And let's not even bring up 2012 or 2015 Messi. Played at a higher level and performed better even despite that as well. But 15 years later there are still people who'd have the former ahead of him.

Could Messi do what Maradona did if he was playing back then and off his pickle on charlie?
Well never know. For me Maradona was more naturally gifted than Messi, just.

 

[B20]

This just depends on their role though. I do find it weird how much VVD is getting the praise over Konate this season when you look at their stats, both have been excellent but the aggressive/pusher CB has a much harder job. What is crazy when you look at their direct comparison is VVD essentially never tackles (hence why he is never dribbled past) he averages 1 tackle every 4 games via Fbref (as an aside if ever we wanted a stat to show how football has changed that might be it). Konate, to his credit tackles more AND wins the ball more often AND wins a higher percentage of headers. Quite impressive when you think the higher the number the harder it is to keep a high percentage.

Was it easier for Terry? He faced far more crosses, more 1 v 1 duels versus strikers, more action in general but because he was deeper and therefore not running as much you think it was easier? He was a product of his time. Football now is harder for CBs technically but physically its a cakewalk if you are in a top team that can keep possession when needed and who defend from the front. Look at Stones (VVD clearly vastly better than him) he'd get brutalised if he played 10 years ago because everything was so direct and far more contested into the CBs. Football is so different now, CBs in the top teams barely have to tackle/be combative because of how different the game is.

I do agree it makes more sense to group the CBs - so you compare Terry with Adams, Ramos, Maldini, Puyol, Vidic and then Rio with VVD, Varane, Nesta, Pique because it is almost a completely different role. Within that there are obviously differences with how their teams play, but the classic combination almost always has one sitter and one who pushes. The CBs tasked with pushing on get criticised much more because even if they come out and win the ball 9 times, if they get skinned once and the other team score, people call them rash and talk about how they cost their team. The other CB never has that issue because they rarely enter those kind of high risk situations.

A lot of VVD's lack of action comes down to avoidance though. Most teams try to play around him and few ever try to actually take him on because they know the outcome.

That low tackling is not reflective of changing times. The Numbers Game was published in 2013 and showcased how low tackling was not evidence of good defending far earlier than that.

​

"Non-occurances of events appear generally less salient, memorable or informative than occurrences.... As a result, people discount causes that are absent (things that didn't happen) and augment the importance of causes that are present (things that did happen). This influences how we think about soccer: not only do we consider the goals that our team score more important than the goals they do not concede, but we value the tackles they make more highly than those challenges that their preternatural sense of positioning, their game intelligence, mean they do not need to make. That is where (Sir Alex) Ferguson went wrong (selling Jaap Stam because of decrease in tackling numbers). He needed to engage in counterfactual thinking: Stam was not doing as much, but that was not a sign of weakness, it was a sign of his quality. But because Ferguson could not see those unmade tackles, he did not value them.​

​

"Xabi Alonso, the Spain and ex-Liverpool midfield player, understands this instinctively. He told the Guardian that he was surprised so many young players at Liverpool herald 'tackling' as one of their strengths. 'I can't get into my head that [soccer] development would educate 'tackling' as a quality, something to learn, to teach, a characteristic of your play,' he said. 'How can that be a way of seeing the game? I just don't understand [soccer] in those terms. Tackling is a [last] resort and you will need it, but it isn't a quality to aspire to, a definition.' To Alonso, tackling happens when something goes wrong, not right.​

​

"There was no greater exponent of this than Paolo Maldini, the legendary former captain of AC Milan and Italy. Maldini, famously, rarely made a tackle. Mike Forde, Chelsea's director of [soccer] operations, reckons Maldini made 'one every two games.' Maldini never had to get his legs dirty because he was always in the right place to cut off the danger. The best defenders are those who never tackle. The art of good defending is about dogs that do not bark.​

I don't know if the Ferguson story is true, but in 2007, he commented on Maldini's performance against Bayern: "Maldini went through the entire 90 minutes without tackling. That is an art, and he is the master of it.” And Maldini himself of course famously said "if I have to tackle, I have already made a mistake".

A while back a poster on here was trying to claim that Van Dijk is lucky (lol), because every cross and through ball seems to hit him instead of reaching the attacker. It says a lot about the work Van Dijk goes through and why he'd be fine in a low block as well. His anticipation, leadership and reading of the game is outstanding. He's second in the league for interceptions, which is remarkable given how much we have the ball. What sets him apart from someone like Terry is that he is peerless in one on ones as well. If anything, the decrease in tackling from VVD is evidence of his continuous improvement.

 

[RobinLFC]

I don't think points distribution clearly says how competitive something is.

If it's Utd winning the league, it points to a more competitive league. If it's a Utd rival winning the league, it points to the other contenders being shit that season.

 

[RedRocket9908]

I don't think points distribution clearly says how competitive something is.

If a team wins the league with 78 points that shows that the league is competitive as there were taking points of the team that won where as if a team wins the league with 90 odd points that shows the league is uncompetitive as their have been very few teams being good enough to take points off them.

 

[TheDutchLad]

A lot of VVD's lack of action comes down to avoidance though. Most teams try to play around him and few ever try to actually take him on because they know the outcome.

That low tackling is not reflective of changing times. The Numbers Game was published in 2013 and showcased how low tackling was not evidence of good defending far earlier than that.

​

"Non-occurances of events appear generally less salient, memorable or informative than occurrences.... As a result, people discount causes that are absent (things that didn't happen) and augment the importance of causes that are present (things that did happen). This influences how we think about soccer: not only do we consider the goals that our team score more important than the goals they do not concede, but we value the tackles they make more highly than those challenges that their preternatural sense of positioning, their game intelligence, mean they do not need to make. That is where (Sir Alex) Ferguson went wrong (selling Jaap Stam because of decrease in tackling numbers). He needed to engage in counterfactual thinking: Stam was not doing as much, but that was not a sign of weakness, it was a sign of his quality. But because Ferguson could not see those unmade tackles, he did not value them.​

​

"Xabi Alonso, the Spain and ex-Liverpool midfield player, understands this instinctively. He told the Guardian that he was surprised so many young players at Liverpool herald 'tackling' as one of their strengths. 'I can't get into my head that [soccer] development would educate 'tackling' as a quality, something to learn, to teach, a characteristic of your play,' he said. 'How can that be a way of seeing the game? I just don't understand [soccer] in those terms. Tackling is a [last] resort and you will need it, but it isn't a quality to aspire to, a definition.' To Alonso, tackling happens when something goes wrong, not right.​

​

"There was no greater exponent of this than Paolo Maldini, the legendary former captain of AC Milan and Italy. Maldini, famously, rarely made a tackle. Mike Forde, Chelsea's director of [soccer] operations, reckons Maldini made 'one every two games.' Maldini never had to get his legs dirty because he was always in the right place to cut off the danger. The best defenders are those who never tackle. The art of good defending is about dogs that do not bark.​

I don't know if the Ferguson story is true, but in 2007, he commented on Maldini's performance against Bayern: "Maldini went through the entire 90 minutes without tackling. That is an art, and he is the master of it.” And Maldini himself of course famously said "if I have to tackle, I have already made a mistake".

A while back a poster on here was trying to claim that Van Dijk is lucky (lol), because every cross and through ball seems to hit him instead of reaching the attacker. It says a lot about the work Van Dijk goes through and why he'd be fine in a low block as well. His anticipation, leadership and reading of the game is outstanding. He's second in the league for interceptions, which is remarkable given how much we have the ball. What sets him apart from someone like Terry is that he is peerless in one on ones as well. If anything, the decrease in tackling from VVD is evidence of his continuous improvement.

Actually - Xabi's comments are very similar to the ''Dutch school''. In the Netherlands, having to engage into tackles is more seen as a ''weakness'' than a strength, since it probably means that as a defender you were out of position. That's why a lot of the elite Dutch defenders are not known for their tackling (VVD, De Vrij, De Boer, Koeman) - but also the upcoming crop of defenders like Van de Ven, Timber, Geertruida.

That's why I was a bit surprised when we signed Wan Bissaka, to read on the caf that he is a good signing because he is elite at tackling.

 

[DannyCAFC]

If a team wins the league with 78 points that shows that the league is competitive as there were taking points of the team that won where as if a team wins the league with 90 odd points that shows the league is uncompetitive as their have been very few teams being good enough to take points off them.

Not necessarily, this is a very simplistic way of looking at it IMO. It could just indicate that there weren't really any particularly strong teams that year historically.

Think 2015/16 - are we saying that year was particularly competitive all-round and that overall standard of the league went up a notch? Or that it was year when everyone agreed that all the usual title contenders were shite?

For reference - below is a comparison of 2010/11 when Utd won the title on 80 points, vs 2018-19 when Liverpool finished 2nd on 97.

Position	2010-11 Season Team	Points	2018-19 Season Team	Points	Variance
1	Manchester United (C)	80	Manchester City (C)	98	+18
2	Chelsea	71	Liverpool	97	+26
3	Manchester City	71	Chelsea	72	+1
4	Arsenal	68	Tottenham Hotspur	71	+3
5	Tottenham Hotspur	62	Arsenal	70	+8
6	Liverpool	58	Manchester United	66	+8
7	Everton	54	Wolverhampton Wanderers	57	+3
8	Fulham	49	Everton	54	+5
9	Aston Villa	48	Leicester City	52	+4
10	Sunderland	47	West Ham United	52	+5
11	West Bromwich Albion	47	Watford	50	+3
12	Newcastle United	46	Crystal Palace	49	+3
13	Stoke City	46	Newcastle United	45	-1
14	Bolton Wanderers	46	Bournemouth	45	-1
15	Blackburn Rovers	43	Burnley	40	-3
16	Wigan Athletic	42	Southampton	39	-3
17	Wolverhampton Wanderers	40	Brighton & Hove Albion	36	-4
18	Birmingham City (R)	39	Cardiff City (R)	34	-5
19	Blackpool (R)	39	Fulham (R)	26	-13
20	West Ham United (R)	33	Huddersfield Town (R)	16	-17

This is exactly what I was talking about in an earlier post. The distribution as a whole is not actually much different until you get to the very bottom 2/3 teams in the league which simply indicates that the worst sides were more beatable, but the data is in no way indicative of a more competitive league as whole... in fact all the way down to 12th place, teams in each position actually earned more points compared to 10/11.

 

[Hammondo]

If a team wins the league with 78 points that shows that the league is competitive as there were taking points of the team that won where as if a team wins the league with 90 odd points that shows the league is uncompetitive as their have been very few teams being good enough to take points off them.

Well it's not that simple. You can have 3 teams with around 90 points and you can argue it's competitive. You can have lots of teams around 78 points and everyone has played poorly and you can argue it's uncompetitive. One team can run away with it but every match was very competitive and the league is a real battle.

 

[RobinLFC]

If a team wins the league with 78 points that shows that the league is competitive as there were taking points of the team that won where as if a team wins the league with 90 odd points that shows the league is uncompetitive as their have been very few teams being good enough to take points off them.

What a load of crap

Imagine trying to tell someone that Leicester was a stronger PL winner than City because they won it with 81 points in a competitive league and City won it with 100 points because the rest of the teams were shit. League points total shows how good a team is, not how competitive the league was.

 

[tomaldinho1]

A lot of VVD's lack of action comes down to avoidance though. Most teams try to play around him and few ever try to actually take him on because they know the outcome.

That low tackling is not reflective of changing times. The Numbers Game was published in 2013 and showcased how low tackling was not evidence of good defending far earlier than that.

​

"Non-occurances of events appear generally less salient, memorable or informative than occurrences.... As a result, people discount causes that are absent (things that didn't happen) and augment the importance of causes that are present (things that did happen). This influences how we think about soccer: not only do we consider the goals that our team score more important than the goals they do not concede, but we value the tackles they make more highly than those challenges that their preternatural sense of positioning, their game intelligence, mean they do not need to make. That is where (Sir Alex) Ferguson went wrong (selling Jaap Stam because of decrease in tackling numbers). He needed to engage in counterfactual thinking: Stam was not doing as much, but that was not a sign of weakness, it was a sign of his quality. But because Ferguson could not see those unmade tackles, he did not value them.​

​

"Xabi Alonso, the Spain and ex-Liverpool midfield player, understands this instinctively. He told the Guardian that he was surprised so many young players at Liverpool herald 'tackling' as one of their strengths. 'I can't get into my head that [soccer] development would educate 'tackling' as a quality, something to learn, to teach, a characteristic of your play,' he said. 'How can that be a way of seeing the game? I just don't understand [soccer] in those terms. Tackling is a [last] resort and you will need it, but it isn't a quality to aspire to, a definition.' To Alonso, tackling happens when something goes wrong, not right.​

​

"There was no greater exponent of this than Paolo Maldini, the legendary former captain of AC Milan and Italy. Maldini, famously, rarely made a tackle. Mike Forde, Chelsea's director of [soccer] operations, reckons Maldini made 'one every two games.' Maldini never had to get his legs dirty because he was always in the right place to cut off the danger. The best defenders are those who never tackle. The art of good defending is about dogs that do not bark.​

I don't know if the Ferguson story is true, but in 2007, he commented on Maldini's performance against Bayern: "Maldini went through the entire 90 minutes without tackling. That is an art, and he is the master of it.” And Maldini himself of course famously said "if I have to tackle, I have already made a mistake".

A while back a poster on here was trying to claim that Van Dijk is lucky (lol), because every cross and through ball seems to hit him instead of reaching the attacker. It says a lot about the work Van Dijk goes through and why he'd be fine in a low block as well. His anticipation, leadership and reading of the game is outstanding. He's second in the league for interceptions, which is remarkable given how much we have the ball. What sets him apart from someone like Terry is that he is peerless in one on ones as well. If anything, the decrease in tackling from VVD is evidence of his continuous improvement.

In the PL it is - that is Serie A, a notoriously tactical league and still he's doubling what VVD is averaging per 90. Not sure I buy anyone avoids VVD - even the best players will be targeted in some way. That tackling quote I think has been misused hugely in football, wasn't it originally talking about staying your feet i.e. once you commit to a slide tackle, you must have made an error to be in that situation.

He's not lucky, he's a great player I just don't think he's as great as some others do. Case in point on the Terry comparison, your game versus Forest they lumped some balls up and he didn't deal with them well at all. There was that Gibbs White volley where VVD got leant on by a Forest player and so set him up for the chance by losing the physical duel and the ball hitting his head. I really don't know about one on ones, if you mean purely from a jockeying perspective/someone dribbling at him then absolutely but not in a 1 v 1 contest for the ball, VVD is average in that regard post his big injury (pre ACL tackle win % is 76, post is 61%). This has always been my point on here, he had a very short period where he was unbelievable pre Pickford assassination attempt, and has since been very good. If he can have a swansong couple of season snow and add big trophies to his name, I think there's more of an argument but I feel his peak was too short personally.

 

[KeanoMagicHat]

A lot of VVD's lack of action comes down to avoidance though. Most teams try to play around him and few ever try to actually take him on because they know the outcome.

That low tackling is not reflective of changing times. The Numbers Game was published in 2013 and showcased how low tackling was not evidence of good defending far earlier than that.

​

"Non-occurances of events appear generally less salient, memorable or informative than occurrences.... As a result, people discount causes that are absent (things that didn't happen) and augment the importance of causes that are present (things that did happen). This influences how we think about soccer: not only do we consider the goals that our team score more important than the goals they do not concede, but we value the tackles they make more highly than those challenges that their preternatural sense of positioning, their game intelligence, mean they do not need to make. That is where (Sir Alex) Ferguson went wrong (selling Jaap Stam because of decrease in tackling numbers). He needed to engage in counterfactual thinking: Stam was not doing as much, but that was not a sign of weakness, it was a sign of his quality. But because Ferguson could not see those unmade tackles, he did not value them.​

​

"Xabi Alonso, the Spain and ex-Liverpool midfield player, understands this instinctively. He told the Guardian that he was surprised so many young players at Liverpool herald 'tackling' as one of their strengths. 'I can't get into my head that [soccer] development would educate 'tackling' as a quality, something to learn, to teach, a characteristic of your play,' he said. 'How can that be a way of seeing the game? I just don't understand [soccer] in those terms. Tackling is a [last] resort and you will need it, but it isn't a quality to aspire to, a definition.' To Alonso, tackling happens when something goes wrong, not right.​

​

"There was no greater exponent of this than Paolo Maldini, the legendary former captain of AC Milan and Italy. Maldini, famously, rarely made a tackle. Mike Forde, Chelsea's director of [soccer] operations, reckons Maldini made 'one every two games.' Maldini never had to get his legs dirty because he was always in the right place to cut off the danger. The best defenders are those who never tackle. The art of good defending is about dogs that do not bark.​

I don't know if the Ferguson story is true, but in 2007, he commented on Maldini's performance against Bayern: "Maldini went through the entire 90 minutes without tackling. That is an art, and he is the master of it.” And Maldini himself of course famously said "if I have to tackle, I have already made a mistake".

A while back a poster on here was trying to claim that Van Dijk is lucky (lol), because every cross and through ball seems to hit him instead of reaching the attacker. It says a lot about the work Van Dijk goes through and why he'd be fine in a low block as well. His anticipation, leadership and reading of the game is outstanding. He's second in the league for interceptions, which is remarkable given how much we have the ball. What sets him apart from someone like Terry is that he is peerless in one on ones as well. If anything, the decrease in tackling from VVD is evidence of his continuous improvement.

I'm pretty sure that quote/stat about Maldini tackling was bullshit and got debunked a long time ago, Maldini made many tackles, averaging way over what was said there and was very good at them. After that book, that stat got thrown around but wasn't true. I understand the principle of reading the game and not making a tackle, the overarching point isn't necessarily wrong but the Maldini bit was.

Also Van Dijk is second in interceptions in the league apparently but has made hardly any tackles this season. But some interceptions and tackles probably aren't that far away in definition.

 

[Bubz27]

I don't think points distribution clearly says how competitive something is.

I think I said it points to it. I think it is definitely an indicator, one of the, admittedly many, variables.

 

[Hammondo]

I think I said it points to it. I think it is definitely an indicator, one of the, admittedly many, variables.

True.

 

[Loon]

Seems he’s in good form because he was rank for a while there.