It's fair to say that Virgil Van Djik's start to his Liverpool career has been one of peaks and troughs. The Dutch centre back scored the winner as the Reds dumped Everton out of the cup but has still been part of a porous defence, one that conceded two (albeit contentious) penalties against Spurs a the weekend.
The imposing defender sat down with The Times in an interview where he spoke about his critics, his price tag and getting up to speed with Klopp's tactics.
On his critics Van Djik said that they were inevitable and lamented the fact that his mistakes will be scrutinised while positive aspects of his performance will be ignored:
Everybody can say what they want, but I am working hard every day and I am getting back to where I need to be with the help of everyone here. I am just doing my thing. No one is going to look at the good things that you do. Everybody is going to watch the bad things and that is how it is.
[After Tottenham] no one will talk about my performance in general. We defended very well, had two penalties against us with a lot of question marks around them, but no one is going to talk about that. But I know that as a team we did very well against one of the best strikers in Europe.
Van Djik went on to say that it is easy for him to ignore the massive price tag paid to Southampton for his services but that injuries and adapting to a new system with Liverpool have been challenging:
I have been out for eight months — last January until September really — and I didn’t play at Premier League level. It is not easy to come back and, especially when I have made such a big step as now with all the eyes on me and they look at every small detail.
The football we play, the pressing, the different options with players, it is totally different. So you need time to get used to everything, but I am working on it every day together with the team.
While the former Celtic man may give out about the media scrutiny over his every move, you still cannot look past the fact that individual errors are still costing Liverpool valuable points, and as the Premier League heads towards the business end of the season they can scarcely afford many more.
H/T: The Times
