Virgil van Dijk fronted up over the series of errors which led to the concession of Liverpool’s first goal in their 2-2 draw at Brighton on Sunday.
The Dutchman played the ball out from defence to Alexis Mac Allister, who was easily dispossessed by Simon Adingra, and the Seagulls winger took advantage of Alisson Becker’s peculiar positioning to score from almost 30 yards.
The Reds captain was asked about that sequence of events after the game when speaking to Sky Sports (via BBC Sport), and he was keen to take the heat off the Argentine.
Van Dijk said: “Obviously, it is not only him [Mac Allister]. It is me as well. It is a risky ball and we try to play out from the back. These things happen and you get punished. The way we bounced back as a great reaction.”
While Van Dijk seemed not to totally absolve Mac Allister of blame, it’s a sign of his selflessness as captain that he took some of the rap over his somewhat lethargic pass out from the back towards the Argentine.
In truth, the culpability for Adingra’s goal was collective rather than being down to one individual, with several Liverpool players knowing they could’ve done much more to have prevented Brighton from taking the lead so easily.
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The 32-year-old’s composure on the ball is illustrated by his passing success rate of 92.4% so far this season, the second highest of anyone to start more than one Premier League game for the Reds (WhoScored).
However, he knows himself that he was perhaps too languid in trying to play out from the back in that moment, a strategy which plenty of managers seem to prefer in this era but can be fraught with risk.
Van Dijk and his teammates will hopefully take the lessons from today’s match and not present Liverpool’s upcoming opponents with such cheap goals.
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