The Rio style, not Rio specifically.
Rio along with Maldini, Nesta, Baresi, Cannavaro, and a few more all amongst the best who ever played the game.
Who is there on the Vidic side? Him and Terry?
Virgil van Dijk | Performances
- Thread starter Samid
- Start date
The Rio style, not Rio specifically.
Rio along with Maldini, Nesta, Baresi, Cannavaro, and a few more all amongst the best who ever played the game.
Who is there on the Vidic side? Him and Terry?
Cannavaro fits more into the Vidic side. And there is also Adams, Campbell Ferrera, Kohler, Desailly, Stam, Puyol, Godin
And when you look at some of the best CBs right now Van Dijk, De Ligt, Marquinhos, Koulibaily, Laporte, Umtiti(when healthy) do not neatly fit in either category.
Pepe
Pepe
If anything in their partnership I think Pepe was the Rio and Ramos was the Vidic.
Tell that to the player he repeatdly kicked the shit out of
I disagree on Cannavaro. He could do both sides, but he was so good because of his ability to read the game and anticipate things. Desailly and Stam were also similar.
Kohler you can chalk up to the other side but I don't think any of the others mentioned are on the same level as the players named so far.
All the guys mentioned on the other lists read the game and anticipated danger as well.
Pepe was not really called for a lot of fouls or collected many cards in his prime.
Neither did Vidic
Pepe is one of the scummiest players ever to play the game IMO. Right up there with Materazzi.
This 'law' explains a lot about VVD's perception:
Have to disagree. Sure, he was a rough defender but people mainly say that about him because he had a meltdown during a match. If you do a youtube compilation about a defensive player rough plays, almost every center back will look "bad" on it.
Materazzi was a violent players and got away with unimaginable things. He kicked Shevchenko balls twice in one match, ffs
So Messi's contribution to Barcelona over the years have been over-rated then ?
Comparing VVD to Messi is over-rating him. Messi is top 3 of all time, VVD is top 3 in 2019 and not anywhere near to the greatest defenders ever.
Still, in a sense, Messi's contribution is over-rated by some fans. How? By not taking into account the negatives of his low work rate in defence. I don't think another big star in the history of the game has been so lazy in comparision to his team-mates. Xavi used to cover 12-13 km per game whereas Messi runs about 8 km per 90 mins. This is what his fans brush aside and want to talk only about his contributions in attack.
The law I cited above is statistical: it does allow exceptions (but it is still right that most of the time the super stars tend to get disproportional credit for their contributions). In the case of VVD though I think it is more true than false. Liverpool have been excellent in all phases of the game: from the keeper through the defenders to the forwards. Only the midfielders are a bit average in the attacking phase but it is compensated by the contributions of the full backs. Somehow though the talk about VVD has eclipsed the performances of the other top players and any of them was instrumental to the success. That Alisson save against Napoli saved your asses in a game in which VVD deserved to be red carded already in the first half.
Last edited:
Conveniently forgetting that we've been excellent in defence since Van Dijk arrived at Liverpool; he's the cause, not just a piece which was put in an already functioning backline.
Curious why I've never seen this kind of reactions when Chiellini and Bonucci were operating in one of the best backlines of all-time, or even Pique next to the likes of Puyol, Dani Alves and Abidal. Sergio Ramos next to Varane, Marcelo and Carvajal, and probably countless others. Not to mention Van Dijk had three different CB partners this season, two of which are above average but certainly nothing exceptional.
Stupid exaggeration.
Obviously, my point was quite general and didn't apply only to VVD. The latter though is a good example how the exellent (defensive) work of a whole team is explained with the contributions of a single player. Funnily, City had a better defence than Liverpool in the second half of the season and their xGA was clearly superior to Liverpool's but no one was gushing about their CBs. There the attention was on Sterling and Aguero (ironically, both outscored by Mane and Salah).
It's not an exaggeration, the stats back it up if I remember correctly.
Laporte has been getting the praise he deserves last season, he was excellent throughout imo.
That's the thing though, Pepe isnt a cnut because he is rough, it's the fact he's both rough and one of the most pathetic divers of his generation. He's the worst of all worlds. He's basically Satan.Have to disagree. Sure, he was a rough defender but people mainly say that about him because he had a meltdown during a match. If you do a youtube compilation about a defensive player rough plays, almost every center back will look "bad" on it.
Materazzi was a violent players and got away with unimaginable things. He kicked Shevchenko balls twice in one match, ffs
We'll find out how good (I mean really good) VVD is, when he's not there.
Silvestre, O'Shea, Evans etc Looked good when they played next to Vidic or Rio. They weren't the same when they were partnered.
Can Gomez next to Matip or Lovren, or any combination of that three be the same players without VVD?
I'm not sure. We will see.
Silvestre, O'Shea, Evans etc Looked good when they played next to Vidic or Rio. They weren't the same when they were partnered.
Can Gomez next to Matip or Lovren, or any combination of that three be the same players without VVD?
I'm not sure. We will see.
Of course it's an exaggeration Robin, there was a tactical shift especially this season to be a lot less expansive in your play and more pragmatic in your approach to games. You would've been defensively more solid this year with or without VvD with that approach - the fact he had such an excellent season just amplified how good defensively you were.
Meh, I think it's too short-sighted to say he's been excellent because he operates in such a good backline. It's rather that our backline is excellent because we have Van Dijk in the middle. It's not like we play super conservative all of a sudden either - we do indeed play less expansive / more pragmatic than last season and having Fabinho in front of him certainly helps, but we're still on the front foot a lot and leave lots of space down the sidelines for opposing wingers to attack. He sniffs out a lot of danger with his positioning and speed.
Maybe saying he's the "cause" is putting it wrong, but his excellent performances last season were the exponent of our defensive play.
I didn't talk about the back line at all, I mentioned the system and tactics. And while it's not "super conservative all of a suddent" there was definitely a change in the way you approached games.
Fair enough if you disagree on this but I definitely think VvD was helped by the change Klopp adopted last year and by how more protected he was.
Frankly, who cares? What a boring discussion.
You could use the same argument against the likes of Terry, Ferdinand, & Vidic. I'm willing to bet that neither Chelsea, or United, in their prime, with the aforementioned players in the set-up, scored as many, & conceded as few, as we did last season. & for all this talk of 'conservative' football. In the season just gone we actually scored 5 more goals than we did the previous season when our attacking performances were quite often the talk of the town.
I'd say Messi contributed more to barcelona this season than VVD for liverpool, but let me answer your question with another: look at the barcelona teams of 2010, 2011 and 2015. Look at what those players were and did outside of barcelona. Now tell me, how many times have you heard people say barcelona won because of Messi?
VVD is a great defender but more importantly is one of the most reliable ones in case of injury. I mean the guy has missed 6 days of football over two seasons cause of injury which is an insane record, even his career injury record is great. The reason for pools success is not just quality players but players like him never getting injured at all. He is always there, every game , game after game. United on the other hand have had injury fecked defenders for so many years now. The continuity defensively that vvd has provided is a major assurance for salah ( who himself is injury proof) and co to function at their top level and with confidence .
What a moron
Let's hope that complete feck up makes him nervous and subsequently makes more mistakes.
What did he do? Was watching the chelsea game instead.
I don't know, maybe I didn't see it well but he seemed the least guilty on that pass back, defender or GK should have gotten to it but granted, I had two screens on and was paying more attention to the Dortmund-Barca game.
Bit of a lazy touch poked the ball into the path of Llorente and led to Napoli's second. Had a pretty good game up to that point.
Always said he was overrated and never worth the money
Having Adrian there is a weakness to exploit
The one time he cracks its in a friendly. I'll settle for that. Glad to get it out of of the way.
He also made one more mistake, missed the header which lead to Napoli's chance.
Liverpool and losing in Naples, what an iconic duo!
Van Dijk was good, except a lazy touch at the end which allowed Llorente to score the second. Game was practically over though.
Van Dijk was good, except a lazy touch at the end which allowed Llorente to score the second. Game was practically over though.
Can someone please post a vid so the rest of us who watched the Barcelona or the Chelsea game have a good laugh?
Nice pass but lets be honest, He was testing his team mates....clearly they weren't fully aware.
Not his greatest games. I always see a mistake in him whenever he is put under pressure. Maybe time has come.for attackers to stop showing too much respect to him.