He's had a year and a bit/half as a top level defender. It's really not much to start comparisons to the very best.
Virgil van Dijk | Performances
- Thread starter Samid
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Schneiderlin was also good at Southampton becuase the expectations and standards are nowhere near the same. By top level I meant for a top /big team that had high expectations and ambitions - challenging for the league/CL. It's a different gravy. Don't think we can compare his peformances and achievements for Southampton and Celtic with Terry's brilliant ones for Chelsea.
One mistake doesn't change anything. VVD is by far the greatest defensive player of the last 10 years and maybe in league history?
Won't be long now before he is put up there along with the goats like Messi and Ronaldo
Won't be long now before he is put up there along with the goats like Messi and Ronaldo
Not sure about that!
People have short memory (or some are just kids). The fact that an English team won the UCL convincingly after 11 years adds too much to the Liverpool hype. Great team but not one of the greatest teams ever.
Agreed. I guess it's mostly because he has so few current competitors, and there's been no truly elite centre back for the entire decade. When Rio peaked in 2008 you had Cannavaro winning the ballon d'Or two years prior, his partner Nesta being every bit as good, Terry and Carvalho setting defensive records, Vidic alongside him - it just wasn't that impressive to see an elite defender, even if Rio was particularly exceptional then. You also had people split on who was the best based on stylistic differences, Rio or Vidic, Terry or Carvalho, Nesta or Cannavaro - and so the pundits' discussion would inevitably get to focusing on the weaker elements of each of their games.
For van Dijk, there's no suitable comparison point. No elite stoppers to highlight the deficiencies that result from his own style, no recent defensive peaks that he's being compared against - he's just much better than all of those comparison points. It just makes it much easier to slip into the historical superlatives. It's just reality that most people's memories are not very good.
That said, no matter what happens what van Dijk did last season was one of the best defensive performances I've ever seen, and will go down in history as a special season for a defender due to the personal awards. A relentless focus on his mistakes this season to try and erase that fact would be incredibly petty. Surely people have better things to do.
Maybe not but part of that was because he was playing at an inferior side, my main concern before signing him was how his attributes would translate to our defence. We had and have a different style of defending and we’d seen many International calibre centre halves struggle massively here. It used to feel like every time the opposition had a chance they’d score even if it was their only shot of the game!
Now a large part of that was the fact we had Mignolet in goal, I’ve never seen a more ill suited player survive so long in such an important position at a top club. But on VVD it became clear quite quickly that he can defend both in a high line and in a low block. I’ve never seen a CB with such few weaknesses he literally has it all. Given Fabinhos rise and Allison in net I don’t think we’d fall off a cliff losing him. But he is the main difference between us being a good side and a great side playing the way we do. No doubt he’s improved under Klopp but the attributes were already there.
Yeah true. Some players are big fish in a small pond. I wonder if it was in fact Alisson's signing who really pushed our defense to a top level. With Mignolet in goal I can imagine opposition managers advising their players to have shots where possible, because if it's on target it has a decent chance of going in. That kind of mentality goes when you're up against top level keepers.
It'd be interesting to see how many long range shots we faced when Mignolet was in goal vs when Alisson signed.
Van Djik's leadership helped but he can't really do anything about the sort of mistakes Mignolet/Karius made on a regular basis.
There’s no doubt that it was, him VVD and Fabinho is an extremely strong spine. Our centre backs used to make a lot of mistakes prior to VVD that they now longer do, now that is like you said in large part down to the extra leadership he brings, but also because mignolet inspired no confidence in our defence and it was always panic stations with him around. Now whenever we’re under pressure you back us to come through it or the keeper will pull off a top save.
However no amount of leadership will stop keepers doing some of the comical things mignolet and karius did for us over the years! I actually thought Karius did really well for us for 6 months till the CL final. It was an improvement on Mignolet, mainly because he suited our style better so it made the unit itself more cohesive. Our defence now just has much more confidence in each other and the keeper, it also helps our attackers knowing they don’t need to score 3-4 every game to guarantee a win.
The hard part of being a defender: one mistake will lead to a clear goal chance and people will say "that's not allowed in elite football".
If the forward misses one easy goal "it's part of the game".
If the forward misses one easy goal "it's part of the game".
This is soo true...If a defenders job is to prevent goals and and strikers job is to score them then we should judge them equally.... VVD is awesome, he made one mistake but how many chances did Salah, Mane and Firmino make in that same game?
Creation is more difficult than destruction. It's easier to defend than to attack. Otherwise, football wouldn't be a low-scoring game and upsets would be much more improbable.
In other words, a Van Basten or a Ronaldo would be always more valuable than a Baresi or a Rio. Say that Van Dijk's presence did prevent 20 goals against Liverpool last season. That's less than half of the goals Messi scored/assisted last season. In any normal situation van Dijk vs Messi shouldn't be a contest.
His performances are extraordinary in comparison to other defenders of this era. In another era though he'd be regarded as "merely" a very, very good defender.
I certainly don't see Rio, Vidic or Terry in him. He's more Carvalho or Kompany for me. He has several years to change that of course.
I certainly don't see Rio, Vidic or Terry in him. He's more Carvalho or Kompany for me. He has several years to change that of course.
Last season he seemed like Carvalho with complete aerial dominance and notably quicker recovery speed, and the latter surely facilitated him playing much more often in a high line than Carvalho ever did at his peak. We know is that Carvalho struggled playing in a higher line at Madrid, like many top defenders have - we can't discount the fact he was past his peak, but also can't assume he can play equally well in either system.
But yeah, on the balance of their careers so far I'd still pick Carvalho. Definitely one of the more underrated defenders of the modern era. It wouldn't be shocking if van Dijk kept it up at a similar level (but stepped down a tier like Rio), but equally there's no reason we should it'll happen and rate him based on that imaginary reality already. It'd be surprising if Klopp has settled on 3 workhorses in midfield as his long-term tactic, so we'll find out a lot more about van Dijk when he's more exposed.
Then you underrate Carvalho and Kompany.
There seems to be a couple of people trying to degrade Van Dijk in here. Let's be honest, you'd all have him in your team!
I haven't seen a CB like him before. Out of all the great PL CBs I think he would be the most difficult to play against. He's obviously a unit but his reading of the game is brilliant aswell as composure and leadership.
It would've been so interesting to see him come up against a prime Drogba. I reckon Drogba is probably the only forward who would've got the better of him from PL history.
It would've been so interesting to see him come up against a prime Drogba. I reckon Drogba is probably the only forward who would've got the better of him from PL history.
Titi Henry and Cristiano?
What makes him so different to Rio?
To be fair yeah Henry 03 and ronaldo 08-16 would run rings around him like they would with any player but then again we never saw them come up against a CB like VVD, who possesses pretty much everything you can ask for in a CB.
For me
He's physically as powerful as vidic but due to his composure it is overlooked.
He is on par at least with Rio's reading of the game.
His leadership is on par with a prime john Terry.
And he's a better ball playing CB then all of the above.
He isn't that fast. I cant really downplay anything of his. The other great CBs all have blatant limitations but trophy wise he is still a newbie.
Liverpool dont realise what they have.
Incorrect.
If a striker scores 3/6 chances and a defender defends well 3/6 times the striker has does a better job by absolute miles. Scoring is more difficult than defending - if it's seen on an incident basis as you seem to.
Hyperbole. Barcelona twatted Liverpool at the Camp Nou. I think Messi scored 2 and Barcelona had a piss easy chance to score a 4th. Lots of strikers would get the better of VVD as they did with many other CBs.
Come on mate. Playing against a Barca team revolved around messi (goat) is not what I was saying. Messi and co have scored against every man and their dog and will carry on doing so.
I'm talking more PL based battles.
Still, tons. The PL has seen all time great strikers and they'd all win plenty of battles as they did Vs Terry, Rio etc
I mean they just lost 2-0 to Napoli with him cocking up. And they hardly have an Henry or RVN in their line up. He's a very good defender but there's so much unfair hype.
His physicality isnt overlooked, he just doesnt use it in the same way Vida used to. Outside of headers he doesnt go charging around putting attackers in their place In fact most of the time he backs off too much.
He's a Rio type of defender but i disagree when it comes to him reading of the game, he's great at that but not quite the same. Rio and T.Silva really are in their own category in that regard.
He's a fantastic ball player no doubt about that. Better passer than the likes of Rio and just about as composed as him.
His weakness of back off too much really was on show that game.
He's similar to Rio but he's physically superior which makes him so unique imo. For instance Vidic would make Drogbas life hell but would get humiliated by Torres. Rio wouldn't cope with Drogba like Vidic but he'd outsmart Torres. That for me is why we had the greatest cb partnership in the world for a few years. They were like bonnie and clyde.
VVD on the other hand is a hybrid of the above. He can get physical but he can also outsmart his opponents.
Dont get me wrong, I wouldn't swap Rio for any centre back ever with all things considered.
No one could handle Torres in our defence.
Hyperbole. You didn’t see the game if you think that’s what happened.
I think we do which is why we spent so heavily on him and why he starts every Premier League and Champions League game when fit.
Best defender in the league and arguably Europe right now.
He doesn't have Vidic next to him. He just makes the player next to him look like Vidic.
Sorry but I don't recall anyone calling him world class while at Southampton, some of his defending there was really poor at times.
Not saying he's not a good player because he clearly is, he's made a big difference to Liverpool but let's see if he can do it for 4-5 seasons (like the ones listed below) before we start calling him the greatest ever eh?
Rio
Vidic
Ramos
Pique
Kompany
Maldini
Nesta
Stam
Chellini
Canavarro
Terry
Not saying he's not a good player because he clearly is, he's made a big difference to Liverpool but let's see if he can do it for 4-5 seasons (like the ones listed below) before we start calling him the greatest ever eh?
Rio
Vidic
Ramos
Pique
Kompany
Maldini
Nesta
Stam
Chellini
Canavarro
Terry
It was more even than the sideline suggested but that says more about your midfield and attack than your defence which was the let down.
Messi has just beaten him to win the Best FIFA Men's Player of the Year award. Usually a good indication that the winner of that award goes on to win the Ballon D'Or too so I reckon he'll miss out on it.
He's a great, truly fantastic CB but I don't get the need to call him the best CB in PL history already.
No shame in finishing behind Messi. Football is about attacking, so attackers win this stuff.
Uh.. Isn't Ballon D'Or and the best the same thing now?
Agree. Its a bit ridiculous