Can see why Klopp waited for this mythical beast.
VVD - Titan
- Thread starter superchimp
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Virgil.
Call him Virgil.
Call him Virgil.
A pure collosus. He'll make mistakes sure, but less than the rest of em
I'll tell you something. He can hit a great pass as well.
This belongs here. Doesn't need the armband. He IS our captain.
True. I think like Suarez did, he will have a knock-on effect as well. I think Lovren and Karius already show signs of improving under his guidance/criticisms.
I also noticed our much maligned and derided Lovren also played well....
Niiiiiiice
Niiiiiiice
Yes, he had a great game.
This. He's occasionally produced such performances before. The key will be to keep them coming on a regular basis and avoid the serious dips in form to which he's been prone up till now. Lining up next to van Dijk looks to be helping with that already.
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Lovren seemed to think he needed to try to be a leader, & failed miserably at it.
Hopefully VVD's almost unflappable demeanor & ability to shrug off the odd mistake with ease will help him relax a bit more. He certainly seemed to be much less rattled by Kane knowing VVD was alongside him the other week.
He's also got a really good, powerful shot on him. He should always be an option for free kicks.
It's strange with Matip – he's has so much going for him: size, decent pace, comfortable on the ball, tactically aware, calm demeanor, coachable etc. He's a far more talented and well-rounded defender than Lovren or Klavan. But this season his confidence clearly took a dip and now he manages to make at least one unnecessary mistake every single time he plays. Even in the short appearance yesterday he almost played in a Porto forward with a back-pass (Karius came out in time to clear with his head). So far unlike Lovren he doesn't seem calmer playing alongside VVD.
Yeah now that you mention it I do recall him being labelled as a defender who will get 4 or 5 goals a season from set pieces. Some of the chances hes missed from corners and free kicks have been horrific. The said big Virgil looks like he has absolutely everything required to be a monster of a defender for another 5 years or so
That was me. And for good reason – he did get 3-5 goals per season in Germany consistently:
2011-12 – 5 goals (all competitions)
2012-13 – 3 goals
2013-14 – 4 goals
2014-15 – 3 goals (missed 3rd of the season with injury)
2015-16 – 4 goals
If you can't quite imagine Matip heading the ball cleanly and with power, here are 4 he scored in his last season at Schalke:
Then, at LFC, a sharp drop in production:
2016-17 – 1 goal
2017-18 – 1 goal (so far)
He also had a remarkable number of assists for Schalke, mostly through-balls, but also some headed assists from corners like at 8:16 here. That too has dried up almost completely at Liverpool. That pass for Salah that led to Firmino's genius back-heel is the first time in a long time I can remember him making an attacking contribution.
I have no idea what's the reason for this sharp drop – he looked a physically dominant and technically silky defender in Germany, but here he seems increasingly scared of physical contact and sometimes downright clumsy. I can only guess that last season's injuries were more serious that we were led to believe and perhaps affected his game in a profound way – kind of what Rosco predicted for VVD, which thankfully didn't come to pass so far.
By the way, his overall % of headed duels won is on par with Van Dijk and one of the highest in the EPL this season. So when he does go up for a header, he wins it 3 out of 4 times – but his overall number of aerial duels is way below Lovren and Van Dijk, despite playing in more games than VVD. Again, that's uncharacteristic of his career pre-Liverpool; for instance in his last season in Germany he was 5th in overall number of headed duels among defenders and had the 2nd highest % of successful ones in the league. So either EPL is way, way more physical than Germany (which doesn't seem to be the case – it's a bit more physical for sure, but on a comparable level) or something happened to Matip to make him less likely to engage in aerial duels, even though when he does, he is still effective.
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Really? I mean Terry was a top CB and I can see VVD reaching that level in the future. But I don’t know if their playing style is that similar.
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