Darren Bent has told Sky Sports (20/10/20 at 11:10 am) that Liverpool centre-back Joel Matip might now have to ‘pull the reigns’ on Andy Robertson being attack-minded.
It has been suggested by Bent that someone like Van Dijk would allow his fullbacks to be gung-ho because he ‘didn’t care’ about defending one v one, but he feels it will be a different story for Matip, who might not be as ‘comfortable’.
Liverpool are set to play their first encounter without Van Dijk when they take on Ajax tonight in the Champions League.
Whilst a lot of people will feel that the champions will miss Van Dijk from a defensive standpoint, Bent also believes they will lose a lot from an attacking sense also.
“You would even go as far to say them going forward as well [they will miss Van Dijk],” Bent told Sky Sports. “I always felt the very best defenders out there used to love defending 1-1. He didn’t care. He used to give Robertson the license to keep going and keep going.
“The fact that he’s no longer there, whoever will replace him, whether it will be Matip or whoever, are they still going to have that same confidence? Say, Robertson or Trent, ‘yeh, you lot keep going, it doesn’t really matter. I can deal with this one v one’.
“I am not too sure that Matip, for instance, is going to be comfortable doing that. I think he might pull the reigns on Robertson going forward a little bit. And that will take something off Liverpool going forward. I think it could upset on the whole foundation in the way Liverpool play.”
It will be interesting to see how this Liverpool side react to Van Dijk’s injury because the fans, players and the manager have been pretty feisty since.
The fact that Jordan Pickford hasn’t been banned doesn’t help the cause, nor does the challenge from Richarlison on Thiago, in which he was punished for.
But the bigger problem for Liverpool is that they were already conceding a heavy amount of goals when Van Dijk was already in the team this season, so this is no doubt the biggest test Klopp has faced in a long while.
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