An unusual confrontation took place this evening (Monday) between Liverpool players, after the veteran James Milner scolded the team’s stopper Virgil van Dijk after the goal their team conceded the first goal against Manchester United. The incident happened right after Jadon Sancho tripped the Liverpool defense and made it 0:1 to Manchester United, laying Milner on the grass. Van Dijk, on the other hand, remained a little frozen, kept his hands behind his back and actually allowed Sancho to run in the area and score easily into the open net.
— SpClips (SpClips2) August 22, 2022
The television footage showed Milner furiously approaching Van Dijk, scolding him for his conduct in defense, and yelling at him “You fucking need to get out!”. As expected, the network mocked Van Dijk for the stagnation in the defense.
Van Dijk when it’s time to commit a tackle pic.twitter.com/Kv0MzXbNhH
— Raf (CFCRaf2) August 22, 2022
Van Dijk had front row tickets to enjoy Sancho’s goal. pic.twitter.com/wy0hPDzMOa
— Troll Football (TrollFootball) August 22, 2022
Virgil van Dijk had a front row view of Sancho’s goal ???? pic.twitter.com/MBBPfqPJDc
— ESPN FC (ESPNFC) August 22, 2022
Sancho gave Virgil van Dijk a front row seat. pic.twitter.com/uibxL4aemw
— Juliet Bawuah (julietbawuah) August 22, 2022
In the end, Manchester United beat Liverpool 1:2, in an incident that somewhat reflected the low mood and pressure in Liverpool, against the background of the recovery and energy of the winner.
The commentators in England criticized Liverpool, and the low energy in the team. Although the cup holder had to do without Thiago, Jota, Keita, Nunes, Konata, Matip and Chamberlain, Jamie Carragher concluded: “It was a very worrying day for Liverpool.” Roy Keane even claims that “Van Dijk seems to have completely lost it”, and it was Gary Neville who said that the fall is reasonable given the circumstances: “Liverpool have earned enough credit not to kill them at the moment. They have a lot of injuries. I wouldn’t be too worried if I were Liverpool, there She has a lot of wounded people who need to return.”
Liverpool conceded the first goal of the game for the seventh game in a row and fell behind. “We shouldn’t concede goals like that”, said Andy Robertson, “teams start better than us… 2 points out of 9, we have to improve the level and start the season. We are frustrated at the moment, but it is important that we stay together. We are one close unit, but we have to go up Gear up and get into the rhythm.”
Jurgen Klopp: “United were very aggressive at the beginning. They scored a quick goal, we took control of the game and played the way we wanted. We were unlucky with the situations, certainly against a team like United, it would have helped us if we had equalized before the break. After their second goal we responded and kicked Lots of goal kicks, we should have spent more of those minutes, De Gea made a great save. In the end we lost because we ran out of time, plus they didn’t play any football at all.
“We are in a problematic situation in terms of injuries, we had 14-15 mature players this week, and now we have to make sure they don’t get injured either. We deserved to win this game. I know it sounds ridiculous, but that’s how I saw it. I’m worried about our situation, but this is the situation.
“I don’t have many arguments, we lost. We can turn the situation around. We are capable of playing good football. But we want to fight. We have a good home game on Saturday, and Anfield must be roaring. We must provide passion and pace. We will try to do everything that every Liverpool fan expects from us : fight for our lives”.