{"id":269212,"date":"2025-11-08T04:22:18","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T04:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/269212\/"},"modified":"2025-11-08T04:22:18","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T04:22:18","slug":"liverpool-boss-arne-slot-has-final-say-to-end-virgil-van-dijk-and-wayne-rooney-spat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/269212\/","title":{"rendered":"Liverpool boss Arne Slot has final say to end Virgil van Dijk and Wayne Rooney spat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virgil van Dijk and Wayne Rooney’s back-and-forth over recent weeks came to a head when the Amazon Prime pundit was working at Anfield as Liverpool beat Real Madrid\"VirgilVirgil van Dijk has “been a very good captain” for Arne Slot(Image: Liverpool FC, Liverpool FC via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Arne Slot has defended Virgil van Dijk<\/a> after the Liverpool<\/a> captain faced criticism over his leadership from Wayne Rooney<\/a>. The former Everton<\/a> and Manchester United<\/a> striker claimed last month that he did not think Van Dijk had properly captained the Reds this season.<\/p>\n

The Liverpool skipper hit back at the remarks, branding them “lazy”<\/a>, though Rooney has stuck to his guns. The pair then thrashed out their disagreement<\/a> at Anfield following Tuesday night’s 1-0 Champions League<\/a> victory against Real Madrid<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rooney remains unmoved on his stance. Nevertheless, he did admit that suggesting Van Dijk had stopped trying after penning a fresh deal was harsh<\/a>.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Jamie Carragher delivers telling big-game verdict on Mo Salah ahead of Man City clash<\/a>READ MORE: Liverpool star given contract hint by Arne Slot as Steven Gerrard left ‘proud’<\/a><\/p>\n

Slot<\/a> addressed Van Dijk’s captaincy during Friday’s press conference. He explained: “I’ve picked captains at my former clubs where the age of the players was much younger.<\/p>\n

“Maybe not completely because they were already the leader of the team, but hoping that it could help them become a leader of the team. But with Virgil, it’s so clear that he’s the leader of this team.<\/p>\n

“When you walk through the AXA [training centre], when we start the training session. You can hear him, you can feel he’s our leader.<\/p>\n

\"WayneWayne Rooney has called out Virgil van Dijk this season(Image: Carl Recine, Getty Images)<\/p>\n

“He’s already been so important for this club for so many years, but I don’t think I’ve had many captains who were so vocal, so loud as he is. He’s been a very good captain for me, and since he became the captain of this club.<\/p>\n

“He sets the bar at 10 out of 10, and when he has a nine out of 10 [performance], he sometimes gets criticised, too. I think other players will get compliments for a nine out of 10, but he gets criticised for that.<\/p>\n

\"ArneArne Slot spoke at length about Virgil van Dijk during his press conference(Image: Liverpool FC)<\/p>\n

“He has had similar form to last season,” Slot continued with Sky Sports<\/a>. “But there were one or two moments this season where he could have done better defensively.<\/p>\n

“And he got criticised by that straightaway. Maybe he should see it as a compliment – because that’s where he set the bar from.”<\/p>\n

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Sky will show at least 215 live Premier League games next season, an increase of up to 100 more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Virgil van Dijk and Wayne Rooney’s back-and-forth over recent weeks came to a head when the Amazon Prime…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[23970,49,48,739,561,82,39820,31516],"class_list":["post-269212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-arne-slot","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-liverpool-fc","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-virgil-van-dijk","tag-wayne-rooney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}