Graeme Souness admits Virgil van Dijk ‘surprises me’ when the centre-back passes to Liverpool’s midfielders. He also wants to see the Dutchman take more responsibility.
The Anfield hero claims the defender is a better passer of the ball than some of the players in manager Jurgen Klopp’s engine room. So, Van Dijk often astounds Souness whenever the 31-year-old freely plays a ball into Liverpool’s midfield rather than conduct the play himself.
Van Dijk has registered 1,976 passes in the Premier League so far this season across his 25 appearances, per WhoScored. Trent Alexander-Arnold has recorded the next-most passes by a Liverpool player with 1,694. Fabinho has played their most by a midfielder with 1,332.
Van Dijk is one of Liverpool’s most influential passers of the ball
Yet out of Van Dijk’s 1,976 attempted passes, only 121 have been accurate long passes with 83 going astray. While the defender has completed 1,652 accurate short passes with 120 so far going astray. Alexander-Arnold has completed the second-most short passes with 1,189.
Just 4.9 of Van Dijk’s 80.6 passes per 90 minutes on average are also accurate long balls to 67.4 short. Although only Nat Phillips (10.9) from two appearances, Thiago Alcantara (6.7) and Alexander-Arnold (5.7) have averaged a higher volume of accurate long passes per 90.
Souness wants to see Van Dijk learn from Hansen
But while Van Dijk has been one of Liverpool’s most influential passers of the ball this term, he surprises Souness. The Reds hero believes the defender has more quality than some of those ahead of him on the field. So, he wants the Dutchman to take greater responsibility.
Souness has also voiced a desire to see Van Dijk learn from another Liverpool great in Alan Hansen. He claims the £220k-a-week enforcer could find more within himself by watching how his former teammate tackled the role having had skills exceeding a centre-back’s role.
“It surprises me at times to see Virgil van Dijk readily play the ball short when he is a better passer than the midfielder he is passing to,” Souness wrote in his column for the Daily Mail.
“A half-hour watching videos of Alan would do Van Dijk no harm. I want to see him take more responsibility because he’s a wonderful footballer. But I doubt there will ever be a better ball-playing midfielder than Alan Hansen. He was a silky midfield player in disguise.”
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