Speaking on The Beautiful Game Podcast, Daniel Sturridge has tipped Liverpool ace Joe Gomez to follow in Virgil van Dijk’s footsteps and cement himself as one of the Premier League’s all-time great centre-backs.
On the podcast, Sturridge was asked to name the five toughest defenders he’d ever played against, and to absolutely nobodies surprise, he named van Dijk as one of the five.
However, after waxing-lyrical about the likes of van Dijk, John Terry and Vincent Kompany, he went on to say that Joe Gomez will be in that conversation one day.
“There’s a lot of young guys coming up too. Training against Joe Gomez when I was at Liverpool, I was thinking ‘ok, ok’, you know what I’m saying.
“I’m trying to twist you up, alright cool, you’re strong, alright cool yeah, you’re fast yeah, you’re not afraid to be dirty, you’ve got it all.
“You look at him and you think yeah he’s next. He’s going to be in that class you can see it, he’s going to be in that class down the line.”
It’s very easy to forget how young Gomez is when you watch him play.
The centre-back has been a key man in the heart of the Liverpool defence for years at this point, but he’s still only 23 years old, and if he does continue to grow at this rate, there’s no reason why he can’t be in the same conversation as the Premier League greats.
Of course, Sturridge knows a lot more than we do as he used to train alongside Gomez every single day, so these comments bode very well for the youngster, and for Liverpool.
We can only hope that we see Gomez back on the pitch sooner rather than later and that his recovery from injury is all going well.
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