‘I hope I’m wrong’: John Terry has made a claim about Van Dijk at Liverpool

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Virgil van Dijk made a long-awaited return to Liverpool’s first XI on Saturday.

The big Dutchman played his first competitive game for the Reds since October of 2020 as Jurgen Klopp’s side thumped Norwich City 3-0 at Carrow Road.

A cruciate knee ligament injury cut short his 2020-21 campaign very early on and only now is the Netherlands international back in action.

It was a pretty calm and straight-forward return for the Liverpool defender, but Chelsea icon John Terry believes that it’s going to take a while before he’s back to absolute best – even though he hopes to be wrong on this one.

He told Stadium Astro before the game: “It’s a big injury. I think it’s going to take time and settle. I hope not. I hope I’m wrong on that but I think he’ll need bleeding into that team and managed throughout the team.”

Ideal

In many ways, this was the ideal comeback game for the Liverpool stalwart.

Teemu Pukki is a very decent striker but let’s be clear, Van Dijk will come up against far better attackers throughout the season.

This represented a pretty simple re-adaption to life in the top flight and although there’s much bigger tests to come, it’s very much so far, so good for the former Celtic and Southampton powerhouse.

Van Dijk comes up against Terry’s former club on August 28 and with £95 million striker Romelu Lukaku back in West London, that’ll be the big one for the Liverpool star.