{"id":141639,"date":"2025-09-16T17:48:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T17:48:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/141639\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T17:48:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T17:48:06","slug":"virgil-van-dijk-on-liverpool-v-atletico-champions-league-ambitions-alexander-isak-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/141639\/","title":{"rendered":"Virgil van Dijk on Liverpool v Atletico, Champions League ambitions, Alexander Isak and more"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On what Isak is like to play against\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Obviously he\u2019s a clinical finisher. I think if you look at his finishing skills: heading, left, right, top corners \u2013 he\u2019s the complete striker at the moment, and the same you can say about Hugo [Ekitike]. I think they are obviously maybe a little bit different but not by much, they both have so much quality. They are comfortable on the ball so they can link up play, they have pace and that\u2019s basically what\u2019s being asked nowadays from the modern-day striker. Both are a handful and it\u2019s obviously good that both are on my side now! Hopefully they can show that in the next games and the whole year for the opponents.<\/p>\n<p>On how long it will take this new-look Liverpool team and squad to gel\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Hopefully as quickly as possible and I\u2019m definitely delighted with all the players, the quality that we have brought in. But it takes time, it\u2019s absolutely normal. They [the new signings] are in a good place, I think to be here with us as a team is a great place to be. The club is in a great place. It gives them the opportunity to express themselves as quickly as possible and that\u2019s a good thing. Obviously when I joined the club as well you want to feel welcome as quickly as possible so you can express yourself in the best way possible, on the pitch especially because that\u2019s what counts, of course, but off the pitch as well and I think that\u2019s definitely been happening.<\/p>\n<p>On what Milos Kerkez and Dominik Szoboszlai bring to the team\u2026<\/p>\n<p>A lot of energy, a lot of quality. Milos is obviously a fantastic, aggressive, full-of-energy player who is obviously learning also how we play and the intensity of playing for Liverpool and also dealing with it on and off the pitch. It\u2019s not an easy thing to deal with but he is going to be absolutely fine.<\/p>\n<p>In terms of Dom, I think he had a great start to the season so far, obviously playing in a position that\u2019s not maybe his favourite one but he did it with an amazing and on a world-class level in my opinion, that [means] it\u2019s a great option to have for the rest of the season. So yeah, I\u2019m very delighted for both of them \u2013 they are learning and they\u2019re getting each better each and every day and I think that\u2019s just great to see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On what Isak is like to play against\u2026 Obviously he\u2019s a clinical finisher. I think if you look&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141640,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[607,608,59,596,603,598,609,611,610,134,602,601,597,606,599,604,101,600,56,54,55,605],"class_list":["post-141639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-alisson","tag-firmino","tag-gb","tag-homepage","tag-klopp","tag-lfc","tag-lfc-news","tag-lfctv","tag-lfctv-go","tag-liverpool-fc","tag-liverpool-fc-match","tag-liverpool-fc-news","tag-liverpool-football-club","tag-mane","tag-reds","tag-salah","tag-sports","tag-the-reds","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-van-dijk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}