John Arne Riise: Van Dijk the only player Liverpool can’t afford to lose
John Arne Riise has told BetMGM that Virgil van Dijk is the only irreplaceable player in the Liverpool squad.
The former Liverpool left-back said: “Liverpool haven’t had a dip in form yet this season. They haven’t been at their best in recent games, but the fact they’ve still picked up points against Everton and Aston Villa is not a bad thing as far as I’m concerned.
“I still make Liverpool massive favourites to win the league. They’ve got to drop points and Arsenal win every game and I don’t see Arsenal doing that, so I’m not too worried about the slight dip in form.
“Arsenal have had a really bad time with injuries and I do think that might cost them in the title race. Luckily Liverpool haven’t had too many injury issues, but I look at that squad and, apart from Virgil van Dijk, I think any player is replaceable.
“Maybe Mohamed Salah because of the goals he scores, but, if he’s out of the team they could bring someone in who could contribute more defensively.
“I think, as long as Van Dijk stays fit, Liverpool are in control of things.”
Nunez might be struggling with pressure of playing for Liverpool
Riise also commented on Darwin Nunez’s form and the Norwegian felt that Nunez might be finding the pressure of playing for a club of the size of Liverpool too tough.
“Darwin [Nunez] is clearly struggling for confidence but so many players go through bad patches of form – it’s all part of being a footballer,” Riise added.
“When one of my team-mates was going through a tough time, I would always try and get them to do something away from football, like snooker or golf. The more you try to talk to someone about it the more it gets in their head.
“Darwin will know he’s in a bad situation. He doesn’t need the other Liverpool players to tell him that. They just need to try and make him happy and make him smile again.
“Unfortunately all of this pressure and the spotlight that he’s under is part of being a big club. You have to handle the pressure and if you can’t you’re not made for playing for a team like Liverpool.
“When I joined Liverpool, I didn’t really know how big a club it was. I was lucky that there wasn’t anything like social media back then, so it was only really the newspapers that criticised a player if they weren’t doing well and if you didn’t want to read it, you just didn’t read the papers.
“It’s not like that now. Whenever you open your phone, there will be something there that has an opinion on you and you have to accept that. People don’t realise how hard it is to play for the biggest clubs and plenty really struggle with it.
“So many players want to be playing in your position and believe they’re good enough so, if you’re not performing at the level the clubs wants you to, all of these huge clubs have the money to just go and get another player.
“Plenty think they have made it when they sign for a club like Real Madrid or Barcelona, however I can safely say from experience that the work only starts then.
“I’m not saying Nunez is like that but it does show that sometimes the pressure of playing for these teams is really hard to work with, even for the best.”
Slot talks about football like Klopp and Guardiola
The 44-year-old spoke about Liverpool’s manager Arne Slot and, having met him recently, he was quick to praise the Dutchman and compared him to the man he replaced at Anfield, Jurgen Klopp, as well as Pep Guardiola.
“I didn’t know too much about Arne Slot before he came in, but it’s impossible not to have been impressed,” Riise said. “I don’t think anyone would have thought how quickly he would be able to bring the team forward and how quickly the players have bought into his ideas.
“What has impressed me so much is how in control he looks. I met him for the first time at Anfield before Christmas and he’s such a nice and polite gentleman. I was blown away by how he spoke about football.
“There aren’t many managers who you could happily just sit down and listen to talk about football, with Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola the two that spring to mind, but Arne is definitely another.
“Liverpool rarely get it wrong with recruitment but none of us expected Arne to come in and make the team so dominant so fast.
“With Jurgen it was brilliant to watch it, but it was quite frantic and the players got that from the way he was on the touchline. Arne is much calmer and you can see the players are influenced by that in the way they keep the ball more now and aren’t as focused on attacking from the first minute.
“He just looks so in control of everything he’s doing and I think he’s been brilliant so far.”