Van Dijk<\/a> played in the middle of three centre-backs and was frequently dragged out of position to allow space for PSG stars to run into, but rather than blame the Liverpool captain, Carragher took aim at teammate Ibrahima Konate, who \u201cmakes a mistake every game\u201d, and Arne Slot, for setting the 34-year-old up to fail.<\/p>\n\u201cHe [Slot] went about it with the back five all wrong and they were actually more open with a back five than they would be with a back four,\u201d Carragher told CBS Sports.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause they went man-to-man all over the pitch and your three centre-backs had to cover the width of the pitch and for Virgil van Dijk watching him tonight in a middle of a back three\u2026 normally when you get to a certain age you feel in the middle of a back three is perfect, everyone\u2019s in position, getting a bit of protection. This was different.<\/p>\n
\u201cDefenders were jumping into midfield, there was no one to mark and Virgil van Dijk at 34 years of age was having to run in there and he was having to run across. He couldn\u2019t do it.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople have criticised Van Dijk for his performances this season but I think it\u2019s been harsh. I think he plays every game, the fella next to him has been awful all season and poor again tonight, Konate, makes a mistake every game, so that\u2019s not easy to play alongside, so I still think he\u2019s been one of Liverpool\u2019s better players, Virgil van Dijk.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut tonight in that back three I have never seen him [Van Dijk] so uncomfortable in a Liverpool shirt in my life.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he will be pleading with Arne Slot to never play that system ever again because he found it so tough.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut, what I must also say, it\u2019s not just the system of Liverpool and getting it wrong tactically, PSG were absolutely out of this world. The biggest compliment I can give them was it was like watching Pep Guardiola\u2019s Barcelona.<\/p>\n
On Van Dijk\u2019s captaincy, Carragher added: \u201cListen, what I would say about Virgil van Dijk\u2026 he\u2019s always been a true leader on the pitch and he is a true leader, for me, off the pitch.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe gets questioned a little bit when Liverpool don\u2019t do well by supporters, his leadership on the pitch, but that always happens when team\u2019s aren\u2019t winning, you\u2019re always pointing fingers.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, he\u2019s been a fantastic captain and a fantastic player for Liverpool and he always comes out and speaks and I respect that because not everyone does right now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jamie Carragher insists Arne Slot got his tactics \u201call wrong\u201d in Liverpool\u2019s 2-0 defeat to Paris Saint-Germain on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[914,61,60,16659,1101,43,112,27030],"class_list":{"0":"post-389463","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-front-page","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-jamie-carragher","12":"tag-liverpool","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-virgil-van-dijk"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}