Van Dijk Promises To Do “Everything In His Power” To Beat Arsenal
A huge top of the table clash awaits Liverpool on Saturday evening.
An excellent midweek win sets the stage for Liverpool’s top of the table clash against Arsenal on Saturday evening. The Reds ran over West Ham 5-1 to make it into the semi-finals of the Carabao Cup. Next they’ll be welcoming Arsenal to Anfield to battle for the top of the table.
Liverpool are only one point behind the league leaders, and a win on Saturday would catapult them back into the top spot. They’d already jockeyed their way there a few weeks ago, but a disappointing draw against Manchester United put them once again on the back foot.
Virgil van Dijk has been tasked to lead the team as their new captain in this tight title race season, and he vows to do anything he can to ensure success for Liverpool.
“[Arsenal] are very good, they are a very good team in every aspect,” van Dijk said about their opponents.
“I think they are very good and we have to be very good as well at the weekend to win the game. But I love to look at my own team and I love to look at what we can bring to the table, and we have a lot to do as well and we can make it very difficult for them too.
“I’ve got massive respect for them. But I want to win the game and we’ll do everything in our power and my power to do so.”
The Liverpool faithful attending on Saturday at the newly expanded Anfield stadium have their own job from Jürgen Klopp while van Dijk does his. He has implored the crowd to amp up the atmosphere to increase their “twelfth man” advantage.
“Arsenal didn’t play this week, they prepare for this game and anyone who knows about them knows they will be prepared,” Klopp said. “So we need Anfield on their toes from the first second without me having an argument with the opposition coach or whatever.”
Anfield has seen some historic victories against Arsenal over the years. Hopefully on Saturday, we’ll get another big one to talk about.
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RB Leipzig respond publicly to ‘typical power play’ from Liverpool
Liverpool have been told their stance on Fabio Carvalho is a ‘typical power play’. The playmaker isn’t having a good time with RB Leipzig.
RB Leipzig loaned Fabio Carvalho from Liverpool in the summer – a move the initially looked perfect for the player. As we approach the halfway point in the season, however, it’s turned into a bit of a nightmare.
Carvalho has zero goals or assists this season. That would worry Liverpool on its own but even worse is that he’s played just 165 minutes in the Bundesliga.
He hasn’t quite made it to two full games’ worth of football, in other words. Given Carvalho has been fit to play, it’s hard to imagine things going worse than that.
And so the talk of late has been that Liverpool want Carvalho back in January. Maybe that’s to use him, maybe that’s to sell him or maybe that’s to find a better fit out on loan.
However, that talk has essentially been dismissed at Leipzig. They’re calling it a ‘typical power play’ by Liverpool – an attempt to scare Leipzig into using him more often.
They’re saying that isn’t necessary.
“Typical power play,” says RB Leipzig director Rouven Schröder per FussballTransfers. “We want the boy to scratch and bite.
“He will get his game time.”
Will that pacify Liverpool for now? It’s not exactly the strongest guarantee and it’s almost certainly what they said in the summer when loaning Carvalho in the first place.
The worry is that they’ll never give him that game time – that they’ll just see out the season having barely used the youngster and then cast him off back to Liverpool. There’s no long-term sacrifice made at Leipzig, after all.
As things stand, Carvalho is on course for 230 Bundesliga minutes this season. That is around two and a half games – over an entire season. It’s not good enough from Leipzig and if they aren’t committed to using him, Carvalho shouldn’t be there.
Klopp could unleash Nunez in new role if Liverpool sign £32m “nightmare”
The Reds were reportedly interested in the Bundesliga ace over the summer.
Liverpool progressed through to the semi-finals of the League Cup with an emphatic 5-1 win over West Ham United at Anfield on Wednesday night.
It was a clinical display from the Reds as they dispatched the Hammers with relative ease to secure their clash with Fulham in the last four of the competition.
This was a much-needed result and performance after the disappointment that came from their 0-0 draw with Manchester United on Sunday.
Jurgen Klopp’s side had 34 shots and racked up 2.38 xG but failed to come away with all three points as their finishing, and shot selections, left a lot to be desired.
One change that the German boss made for the cup clash was to move Darwin Nunez out to the left flank, instead of through the middle as a centre-forward, and he thrived in that position.
Liverpool could now unleash the Uruguay international on the wing on a permanent basis by securing a deal for a player to lead the line.
Liverpool transfer news – Karim Adeyemi
It was reported during the summer transfer window that the Reds were looking at Borussia Dortmund forward Karim Adeyemi as a possible target to bolster their attack.
The outlet also named Federico Chiesa and Leroy Sane as targets if the club lost Mohamed Salah, who was being pursued by Al Ittihad at the time.
Calcio Mercato claimed that Klopp likes Adeyemi ‘a lot’ and that is why the Germany international was on the list of players to possibly replace the Egypt international.
However, Liverpool could reignite their interest in the £32m Dortmund attacker and look to revive his career as a centre-forward, rather than viewing him as a winger.
This would then provide Klopp with a number nine to spearhead his attack, which would then allow Nunez to be permanently moved to a wide role.
Nunez’s performance against West Ham in numbers
The former Benfica star lined up on the left of the attack, with Cody Gakpo as the number nine, and caught the eye with a fantastic performance.
Nunez created an eye-catching four chances for his teammates and registered one assist as he teed up Curtis Jones for the second goal.
No player on the pitch produced more key passes than the Liverpool whiz, who also completed one of his two attempted dribbles in 90 minutes.
He was able to use his physicality and pace to be a constant threat to the Hammers defence to create chances for others, rather than being there to get on the end of passes from others, which is where the forward has struggled this season.
Nunez has been far too wasteful in front of goal as a centre-forward in the Premier League and moving him out wide to be a creative outlet could be a fantastic piece of management by Klopp.
Nunez’s Premier League record in numbers
The 24-year-old dynamo joined the Reds from Benfica in the summer of 2022 and has failed to prove himself to be a reliable scorer in the top-flight.
During the 2022/23 campaign, the Uruguay international produced nine goals and three assists in 29 league appearances for Liverpool.
In that time, Nunez missed a staggering 20 ‘big chances’ but was able to create 11 ‘big chances’ for his teammates. This suggests that he did not make the most of the opportunities that came his way and the same could be said for the players he was setting up.
His finishing has not improved since the end of last season as the forward has produced four goals and spurned a whopping 15 ‘big chances’ in just 16 Premier League outings this term.
He has, once again, been a solid creative outlet for the Reds, though, with five assists and six ‘big chances’ created in his ten league starts.
This means that Nunez has missed 35 ‘big chances’ and created 17 of them for his teammates since the start of the 2022/23 campaign, which suggests that creating for others is a bigger strength of his than finishing off opportunities.
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