OPINION
Liverpool midfielder Georginio Wijnaldum doesn’t get the plaudits for his performances that he deserves and former Reds star Dirk Kuyt’s high praise of him proves it.
Wijnaldum, 27, ended his 2017/18 campaign having scored two goals, while creating four, in 50 outings across all competitions and he had a very solid season when you look back at the majority of his displays.
The midfielder, who earns £75,000-a-week (As stated by Spotrac), doesn’t have mouthwatering stats like a lot of his exciting Reds teammates and this causes him not to get the praise he deserves.
Wijanldum’s importance to his team’s success is wrongly overlooked due to him not exactly being a player who will fill up a highlight reel with wonderful goals and spell-binding skill moves, yet he is important.
Kuyt opted to drool over the player’s stamina and mentality when asked how he thought the Dutchman had fared since arriving at Anfield from Newcastle United in 2016.
“They both (Van Dijk and Wijnaldum) do very well at Anfield and play a lot of matches as starting players,” said Kuyt, as quoted by the Liverpool Echo.
“I think Virgil is a great player, has the right mentality and already proved his value since he moved to Liverpool. Gini has the same mentality and is a player with the lungs of a horse.
“They both started in the final of the Champions League, and I still think we were very unlucky in that match.”
Wijnaldum works non-stop covering a lot of ground for his side in order for his more prolific teammates to be able to power forward and Kuyt’s awareness to describe him as having the lungs of horse, shows what a rare breed of player he is.
Kuyt also touches on the subject of the 27-year-old’s strong mentality which is an attribute that is often overlooked when analysing a player’s abilities and last season there was a key moment in which everyone should have realised its importance.
Wijnaldum was thrust into action from the bench to replace an injured Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain in the high-profile Champions League fixture against AS Roma in April.
Despite seeing his teammate suffer a serious injury, the midfielder was able to not only adjust to the fast tempo of the game, he stepped up to deliver a fantastic performance to help side win 5-0.
Many players would have shied away and struggled to make a difference after being called into action in a similar situation, so when you consider that it was his first season in the Champions League, it showed that he had the right attitude needed to help the Reds battle towards silverware in the near future.
Therefore after Kuyt drooled over two aspect of Wijnaldum’s game it just proves how the midfielder’s importance is constantly wrongly overlooked due to him not being an assist or goal machine for the club.
