Following the recent departure of Liverpool club captain, Jordan Henderson, manager Jurgen Klopp has had another decision to make as we continue our pre season preparations for the coming 2023/24 campaign and our gaffer has now confirmed that commanding centre half Virgil van Dijk will now take over the role.
The experienced 32 year old Dutch international knows the captaincy role well, having been appointed as the national teams skipper back in March 2018, and Klopp has decided that Trent Alexander-Arnold will share the responsibility as vice skipper. TAA takes over the responsibility from James Milner.
For those Liverpool fans who like a small flutter on the coming campaign, with the captain’s armband knowingly up for grabs, there would have been reasonable odds by UK’s top betting websites (such as Ladbrokes) available on van Dijk being the ultimate pick here given his experience in the game and his 222 appearances for the club since making the switch from Southampton back in 2018. The odds would probably have been slightly better for TAA in fairness, but with the games that lie ahead, there will be plenty of other opportunities for anyone else who wants them.
Speaking to the Official Site out in Singapore as the decision was confirmed, van Dijk knew that it was a proud honour for him to have received the armband and he was looking forward to the season ahead.
“It’s a really proud day for me, for my wife, for my kids, my family. It’s been a special feeling and I can’t really describe it at this point. But it’s something that I’m really, really proud of. Obviously I’m captain of Holland, that was already such a huge honour, a proud moment as well. But also to be the captain of Liverpool Football Club is something that I can’t describe at this point. It’s just something that makes me very proud and I will do everything in my power and what I can do to make everyone proud and happy with me and the football club.”
Having had a more disappointing season last year, van Dijk will be determined to see us do better and he will definitely be looking to build on the seven winners medals he has already won with us – Premier League, Champions League, FA Cup, Carabao Cup, UEFA Super Cup, FIFA Club World Cup and the FA Community Shield.
“It has been a very disappointing year last year. It was actually not a bad run-in. Obviously in the end we didn’t achieve anything we hoped to achieve and that was very disappointing. Then you’re going on a very short summer holiday and you reflect on the season you’ve had, personally and as a team, and it hurts. It hurts a lot. You have pride as a human being and you feel like you could have done a lot better, you could have done a lot more consistently.”
With plenty of changes already happening this summer, especially in terms of the player turnover, it seems very much the case that he feels it is time we turn over a new leaf now given our mini rebuild.
“Obviously it has been quite an interesting summer with players obviously leaving and new players coming in, this little transition that is going on. We also have to be a bit patient but we want to be there and we want to show what we’re capable of because we have a fantastic group of players, staff, fans, stadium, we shouldn’t even discuss that. But we can be up there again. It’s all about doing it together with the consistency and hopefully we can show it.”
Fans will be eagerly watching on when the real football starts once more.
Image from: unsplash.com
