ON VIRG OF GREATNESS
Records and titles within reach for VVD and Reds
ONE man stood head and shoulders above this contest, one team stands head and shoulders above the Premier League.
Virgil van Dijk and Liverpool, giants of English domestic football.
No individual is as magnificently dominant as Van Dijk, no team as powerful as the machine assembled by Jurgen Klopp.
No, they are not the champions and have not been in most of these players’ lifetimes.
But as December dawns, they are, surely, already championselect. What odds some publicityseeking bookmaker soon pays out on Liverpool ending their threedecade title drought?
Short.
There are still 24 more match days to negotiate but the likelihood of the downturn in form – and, more specifically, results – needed to give hope to others, looks remote.
That view is not just based on this success because, once again, Liverpool were some considerable way from their most fluent and were hanging on after Alisson was dismissed late on.
Remarkable
But it is based on a consistency of producing the right outcome that is simply remarkable.
They find a way to win even when their potency is not quite there, when their passing is slightly off, when they look physically under-par and when they concede, which they have done in their last 12 games in all competitions.
The statistics are head-spinning – it is now 31 Premier League games without defeat, matching the club record set in the late Eighties.
Of those 31, 26 have been victories.
In their last 39 Premier League matches, Liverpool have amassed 104 points.
They were last beaten in the Premier League at Anfield in April, 2017.
The numbers are relentless – like a red riptide.
Since the start of last season, Liverpool have scored 29 headed goals, 10 more than any other team.
Simple
And when you boast someone with the hang-time of Van Dijk, no wonder.
That was the key to his two first -half goals here – jump early, jump high. Simple.
It helps when the marking is this ropey, sure. But the sumptuous Trent Alexander-arnold delivery (for both) and the beauty of the leap were what made the goals that settled this match.
Van Dijk towered above Brighton like the Eiffel Tower towers above Paris, the city of the Ballon D’OR announcement on Monday.
Lionel Messi will, almost certainly, pip Van Dijk to that honour and it is hard to deny the world’s greatest footballer yet another bauble.
But it is hard to identify another player who has had such a positive influence on one elite
LIVERPOOL 2 BRIGHTON 1
club as Van Dijk has. He has been on the losing side four times in his 66 Premier League appearances for the club and three of those defeats came during what you would describe as his bedding-in period.
He has now contributed seven Premier League goals. But Van
Dijk, like this Liverpool team and like football itself, is about much more than the figures.
He is about the first-time, waisthigh, volleyed pass to Andrew Robertson that brought a collective smile to the Kop.
He is about the imperious brushing-aside of the tireless Aaron
Connolly, he is about the upright interception, he is about the marshalling, the pointing, the low-fiving of Dejan Lovren.
Jordan Henderson captains by voice and by endeavour, Van Dijk runs the show with his calm authority.
After Van Dijk’s two textbook headers, Brighton performed with considerable credit and were given fully-deserved hope when Alisson was sent off for handling outside the area and Lewis Dunk knocked the free-kick past Adrian while he was still organising his wall.
Elegant
But when resistance was re- quired, when the last hopeful balls were lifted into the danger area, Van Dijk stood tall in elegant defiance.
A defender, a player and a leader who is head and shoulders above the rest.
Just like his team.