Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk has come under fire for allegedly \u201cshifting the blame\u201d onto a teammate during the Reds\u2019 2-1 defeat to Manchester United.<\/p>\n
The 34-year-old endured a difficult outing against Ruben Amorim\u2019s side and played a part in Bryan Mbeumo\u2019s early opener just two minutes into the game.<\/p>\n
Aerially contesting a high ball with Mbeumo and Alexis Mac Allister, Van Dijk saw it drop to Bruno Fernandes, who quickly found Amad Diallo on United\u2019s right flank. The winger then outsmarted left-back Milos Kerkez before slipping a precise through ball behind Liverpool\u2019s defence for Mbeumo to slot home.<\/p>\n
It seemed Van Dijk had intended to pass Mbeumo on to his defensive partner, Ibrahima Konate, but the striker managed to get between both centre-backs \u2014 much to the frustration of the Anfield crowd.<\/p>\n
The defeat marked Liverpool\u2019s fourth consecutive loss, leaving them four points adrift of league leaders Arsenal after eight games.<\/p>\n
New arrivals Florian Wirtz, Alexander Isak, and Jeremie Frimpong are still struggling to make an impact, while Mohamed Salah has also found it difficult to influence matches.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Van Dijk and Konate have both been below their best this season. Former Chelsea midfielder Craig Burley has accused the Liverpool skipper of \u201cblaming\u201d teammates instead of leading by example.<\/p>\n
\u201cVirgil van Dijk, to me, isn\u2019t leading right now \u2014 he\u2019s blaming,\u201d Burley said on ESPN. \u201cKerkez is having a tough time, no question. He\u2019s under pressure at a massive club with huge expectations, but it doesn\u2019t help when your captain keeps turning to you, pointing fingers, and digging you out.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven at the end, when the clearance hit Kerkez\u2019s face \u2014 what\u2019s he supposed to do? He\u2019s covering behind Van Dijk. Then Van Dijk turns around gesturing at him \u2014 the crowd sees it, and that doesn\u2019t help anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kerkez, who joined Liverpool from Bournemouth in the summer, has endured a rough start. Gary Neville even accused him of playing \u201clike a ten-year-old\u201d on The Gary Neville Podcast after the match.<\/p>\n
In eight Premier League appearances for the defending champions, the 21-year-old Hungarian has yet to record a goal or assist and continues to look shaky defensively.<\/p>\n
Liverpool will aim to bounce back on Wednesday when they face Eintracht Frankfurt away in the Champions League group stage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk has come under fire for allegedly \u201cshifting the blame\u201d onto a teammate during the Reds\u2019 2-1 defeat to Manchester United. The 34-year-old endured a difficult outing against Ruben Amorim\u2019s side and played a part in Bryan Mbeumo\u2019s early opener just two minutes into the game. Aerially contesting a high ball …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":52517,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/resize-39.webp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52516"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52518,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52516\/revisions\/52518"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/52517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}