An alarming defensive record has dogged Arne Slot\u2019s side this season, with 14 top-flight goals conceded already (nine of those over the last four games), compared to only three for table-topping Arsenal.<\/p>\n
Pardew makes worrying Van Dijk and Konate claim<\/p>\n
Pardew appeared on\u00a0talkSPORT<\/a> on Monday to sift through the wreckage of Liverpool\u2019s latest setback against Brentford at the weekend, and he went as far as to claim that Ibrahima Konate and Virgil van Dijk may have had a disagreement behind the scenes.<\/p>\n The former Newcastle manager said:\u00a0\u201cKonate and Van Dijk genuinely look like they have had a row. I don\u2019t know, maybe he is nicking Van Dijk\u2019s meal at the training ground!<\/p>\n \u201cThere seems to be a lack of\u2026 the one thing about centre-backs is they look after their full-back and each other. That is the key to a back four. Neither are doing that job, so therefore, that is a massive problem for Liverpool.\u201d<\/p>\n If there\u2019s one thing the Reds absoluely do not need right now, it\u2019s for teammates to be falling out with each other, especially those who play as partnerships as Van Dijk and Konate do at centre-back.<\/p>\n Micah Richards did suggest<\/a> that the 34-year-old Dutchman \u2018needs help\u2019 from the Frenchman but isn\u2019t getting it, with Alan Shearer bluntly declaring<\/a> that the duo have been \u2018awful\u2019 in recent games.<\/p>\n The defensive pairing were immense last season as Liverpool romped to Premier League glory, but their effectiveness as a partnership has nosedived over the past couple of months.<\/p>\n Part of that might be down to Van Dijk in particular feeling obligated to cover for the frailties shown by the Reds\u2019 full-backs, with a loss of the chemistry that he and Konate had formed with Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson either side of them becoming apparent this term.<\/p>\n We\u2019d like to think that Pardew is merely being melodramatic in suggesting that our centre-back duo have been at loggerheads behind the scenes.<\/p>\n Players will exchange harsh words on the training pitch and in matches, which is fine so long as it isn\u2019t allowed to evolve into a deeper falling out between teammates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alan Pardew has suggested that two Liverpool teammates \u2018look like they have had a row\u2019 with one another.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-229808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229808","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=229808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Alan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/van-dijk-konate.jpg\")
(Photo by Michael Steele\/Getty Images)Liverpool don\u2019t need teammates at loggerheads with each other<\/p>\n