Virgil van Dijk’s red card showed a great defender in serious decline - is it time for Liverpool to move on?

To debate whether Virgil van Dijk should have been shown a red card for clattering through Alexander Isak against Newcastle United on Sunday is to miss the real question concerning one of Liverpool’s greatest centre-halves. That question is – should Liverpool prepare to move on from the Dutchman? Is he still the game-changing player who dragged his team to a Premier League title and a Champions League win? Is he, simply put, past it?

The issue isn’t whether the Van Dijk of 2018/19, for instance, would have made the same mistake. That version of him wouldn’t have needed to. His anticipation and reading of play meant that he would likely have had a deeper starting position, and would have cut off the chance, letting Isak reach the ball but covering his shooting angle, demanding that the Swede beat him before getting a strike away. That version of Van Dijk wouldn’t have made the same mistake, or many of the others he has over the past year or so.

But then, that version of Van Dijk may not be coming back. Now 32, there is sad evidence of serious decline in his game. He was the single greatest reason that Liverpool won those trophies, because he could single-handedly cover the defensive deficiencies caused by Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andrew Robertson blasting so far up the flanks. There were always balls in behind to deal with, crossing opportunities coming from the space Liverpool left on the counter, but Van Dijk simply swept everything up. He was dominant in the air, absolutely surefooted in the tackle, his positioning was immaculate and he knew exactly when to stand off and when to make the challenge.

And some of that has been lost. He’s still excellent in the air, of course, but he gets caught the wrong side of the defender with increasing frequency. He misses tackles he once would have made with ease. That famous statistic from the 2018/19 campaign about him not being dribbled past once all season was always slightly misleading, in the sense that he had such shrewd judgement and such ability to show attackers down blind alleys that he rarely attempted tackles in such situations, but that 100% success rate was down to just 42% last year. So far this season, he hasn’t made a single successful tackle, against a dribbler or otherwise.

It’s his anticipation and sense of space which seem to have declined the sharpest, out of all of the many stellar attributes we know him to have. He took completely the wrong line against Isak against the kind of straight through ball that he has confidently handled many times before. Against Bournemouth, Antoine Semenyo’s early goal owed a little to Van Dijk offering Dominic Solanke a bit too much room in the build-up to get his shot off, the rebound from which fell for Semenyo to score. Far worse, against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge a fortnight ago, he was marking Axel Disasi before inexplicably running forward to shut down a cross which came in well over his head. He was left utterly stranded as Disasi swept the ball in. It is impossible to imagine Van Dijk misjudging a situation as badly as that back in 2019.

Perhaps some of his decline can be traced back to the lengthy lay-off he endured in 2020, when he spent six months on the sideline following a knee injury sustained in a collision with Jordan Pickford during a Merseyside derby. Had the long-term effects of that taken a toll, it would be understandable. Bad injuries, especially once you’re in and around the thirties, don’t just deplete raw pace, but can make almost all movement just that little more awkward and unnatural. Sometimes those fast-twitch fibres start twitching a little less swiftly, and adapting can be challenging.

But none of the possible physical deficiencies caused by past injury can explain away Van Dijk’s uncertainty and loss of judgement over positioning. Somewhere along the line, much of that composed excellence and understanding of the game around him has been lost. Whatever the cause, it greatly limits Liverpool’s play – or at least makes their usual tactics far riskier.

If Van Dijk can’t be relied on to put out every fire that catches light behind the highest of high presses, then it either makes goalscoring opportunities for the opposition inevitable or forces Jürgen Klopp to play in more circumspect fashion. His squad is not built for the latter – Alexander-Arnold, in particular, is a world-class attacking asset but is of a much lower calibre as a pure defender, as his torrid time against Anthony Gordon this weekend aptly reminded us. This Liverpool side have been built to meet the requirements of a high-tempo and highly aggressive team, and to accept the risks that such a strategy brings. Van Dijk was worth £75m to Liverpool because he was the perfect counterweight to those risks. That no longer seems to be the case.

And so the fulcrum across which Liverpool’s best team of this century was constructed becomes something of a liability. It may not be possible to find another player who is so good at some many elements of defending – Van Dijk, at his best, was an extremely rare breed – but it may become necessary to consider moving on and finding a long-term replacement. He still has two more seasons left on a £220,000 per week deal, but two years may be too long unless Van Dijk can rediscover some of that which he has left behind.

Perhaps Van Dijk can find himself again, and recapture the certainty and composure of his best form, but as he came stumbling through Isak’s legs on Sunday it was hard to see certainty, and as he screamed abuse at referee John Brooks in the aftermath there were no traces of composure. Still, perhaps the problem is psychological, and such concerns need not be permanent. But Liverpool will concede too many goals with this version of Van Dijk to expect to compete for trophies, so whatever the solution, it should be found soon. At this moment, one of the greatest defenders in Premier League history seems like a shadow of his former self.