Rio Ferdinand was unsure about Virgil van Dijk’s post-match comments after Ajax’s 2-1 win in which he lashed out at the club’s critics after a rocky start to the season.
The Dutchman accused the pundits of trying to “take us down” while the Reds find themselves lurking outside the top four places having won just two of their opening six league games.
“If he thought it was wrong or personal he would give me a push,” the former Manchester United star told BT Sport after the game, as quoted on talkSPORT.
“If it was deserved, I will raise my hands and say. But listen, the performance in Naples, if they’re honest, every single one of them will say ‘pfft, it was a bad day at the office and we deserved the criticism we got’.
“But I think we reiterated tonight that we weren’t saying they became a bad team overnight or bad players, it was a bad performance.”
The former Southampton centre-back has struggled for his form, or rather reaching his exceptionally remarkable levels this term.
READ MORE: Danny Murphy baffled by ‘strange’ Van Dijk did immediately after Ajax win
We hope that the decrease in the number of injuries affecting the team in recent times will have a noticeable impact on performance on its own: just look until Thiago Alcantara’s return to the team for our last Champions League victory.
That said, it’s clear overall that there’s still work to be done on the training ground to work out the shortcomings.
We simply cannot allow levels to drop so drastically, or fundamentals like back pressure to suffer, when our number 6 is unavailable due to injury or rotational purposes.
EOTK Insider Opinion: 70% of Liverpool fans suspect he’s had a falling out with Liverpool, but… What’s going on with Naby Keita?
