Virgil van Dijk cut through the headlines after Liverpool\u2019s 0-0 draw at Arsenal on Thursday, asking why the Reds were receiving credit for a match that produced little attacking substance.<\/p>\n
Arne Slot\u2019s side recorded 52% possession away from home but failed to register a single shot on target. The fixture was described by van Dijk as \u201clargely devoid of attacking quality in the final third\u201d as Liverpool struggled to turn control of the ball into clear goal attempts.<\/p>\n
Van Dijk made his feelings plain on the reaction to the performance. \u201cI am a bit surprised that people think this is a good performance because when we have 60 or 70% ball possession against other teams people find it boring and now it is a good performance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He was equally candid about the team\u2019s shortcomings in decisive areas. “But again we hardly created a chance and now we say, ‘What a performance.\u2019 This is who were are, we can dominate possession, we know how to do build-up, but we struggle, obviously, in a few things.<\/p>\n
\u201cSet pieces are one of them, dominating moments when we are in the final third, to find the right pass and the right execution, that is something that is still not at the level some other teams are and that\u2019s why we are working every single day.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes we did really well in ball possession but for me it wasn\u2019t that much different than playing Leeds at home or Fulham away, where we dominated ball possession as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut then people are annoyed that these teams are not of the magnitude of Arsenal it is not good enough, which I completely agree on, by the way, because I want to see us creating more chances as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
The match\u2019s major incident saw Conor Bradley stretchered off after falling while challenging for a long ball. Gabriel Martinelli was widely criticised for dropping the ball on a prone Bradley and attempting to force him off the field; Martinelli later apologised, saying he did not understand the severity of the situation.<\/p>\n
Van Dijk addressed the incident and Bradley\u2019s condition: \u201cOur thoughts are with Conor, first and foremost,\u201d Van Dijk reflected. \u201cHopefully it\u2019s not the worst but it doesn\u2019t look great.<\/p>\n
\u201cA long ball came over, Conor was challenging for it and then he fell down on the pitch. Martinelli obviously then pushes him off the pitch. Our players reacted to that and we all came together. Everyone was unhappy with that moment and rightly so.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t look great for Conor and it doesn\u2019t look great on Martinelli either. We are focusing on Conor. He\u2019ll have medical tests in the next 24 hours and then we\u2019ll have to adapt.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Van Dijk questioned praise for Liverpool after a 0-0 at Arsenal and voiced concern for Conor Bradley<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5931,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,172],"tags":[1081,299,1241],"class_list":["post-5932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-epl","tag-adaptation","tag-arne-slot","tag-conor-bradley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}