Liverpool: Van Dijk mistake made worse by one thing as pundits ‘mentally fatigued’ captain

Gabby Agbonlahor has revealed what he “didn’t like” about Virgil van Dijk’s mistake as Liverpool beat Villarreal 4-3 on Tuesday night.

The Reds came from two goals down to beat Villarreal on Tuesday night in the Champions League with Van Dijk gifting the La Liga side an early opener.

In an attempt to head the ball back to the goalkeeper, Liverpool captain Van Dijk managed to head the ball into Georges Mikautadze’s path, who finished past Alisson.

Owning up to his error after the win, Van Dijk told reporters: “I was waiting for you guys to maybe say something about me personally. It was a terrible start.

“I think there’s a saying, you fight an uphill battle, so, especially as a defender, I think it’s pretty difficult then to come back from it.

“But obviously I tried, but it was a bad day at the office personally, but obviously we do it together with 11 players and we’ve got to turn the round and that’s the main thing.”

READ: Liverpool in no rush to offer their ‘best player’ a new contract

“Unfortunately, in life, these things sometimes can happen and fortunately, it didn’t happen too many times in my career.

“But tonight, yeah, I was not the best; let’s keep it that way. But we won and it’s not about me. And it’s about all of us and we won, we got the three points.”

It wasn’t the mistake which alarmed former Aston Villa striker Agbonlahor but the lack of a reaction to get back into defence and help out.

When put to Agbonlahor that Van Dijk shouldn’t be written off, he replied on talkSPORT: “Yeah, he’s he’s not he’s not the same Van Djk, is he that we’ve seen in his prime, but he’s still a very good defender. Still got speed as well. Not as quick, but still got every attribute you need as a top centre-half. But what I didn’t like from the the goal we give away was his reaction.

“If you make a mistake like that, a bad bad header, the player was going away from goal, you could have ran back. Maybe you would have been able to get back and do something, but even if you’re you’re not going to get back and stop the goal going in, it’s a reaction.

READ: Man Utd star ‘would be thriving’ if he played for Liverpool as Bruno Fernandes blamed – ‘I didn’t like it’

“If you as captain aren’t reacting to your own mistake, what does that say to the rest of the team? So, he’s got to do better.”

CBS Sports pundit Troy Deeney added on Van Dijk: “It seems like he is mentally fatigued. He still has qualities, but that mistake at 0-1… That is not Virgil van Dijk, this is normally not in his dictionary.

“He completely misjudges it and also for the second goal against, he steps in for no reason. He looks frustrated.”

Drawing comparisons to the end of Chelsea legend John Terry’s career, Deeney said of the Liverpool captain: “For every footballer there comes a moment like this in his career. He [Terry] never put himself in danger, but that was because he had Cahill and Azpilicueta next to him and could organise things well.

“Van Dijk has so much athletic ability, but his speed is decreasing. And he coaches his teammates less than Terry did. Look how easily Liverpool concede goals.”

READ NEXT: Liverpool: Romano drops huge Ngumoha contract update amid Arsenal, Bayern Munich links