Van Dijk: Hopefully Gomez Will Keep Improving

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The Dutch international weighs in on the Norwich game, Joe, and what’s in store for the Reds in the coming week.

A 4-1 victory against Norwich City feels like a solid start to the season, but there were several questions that Friday’s game raised (not least of all “why Alisson? why now?!”), and a slightly shakier than normal defense was one of them. Hopefully they’re all just growing pains as the team enters the season, and with most defenders fit and available for selection, Klopp has the option to try out several combinations of players in the weeks to come.

For Virgil van Dijk, the fact that Norwich’s Teemu Pukki managed to get past Joe Gomez and Trent Alexander-Arnold doesn’t detract from how good a player either of them are.

“I think Joe did well against Norwich and he is a fantastic player,” van Dijk said today. ”We have a lot of centre backs walking around at the moment — everyone is fit so the manager has to make a decision. I’m just happy for [Gomez] that he’s fit and playing at a high level.

”Hopefully he will just keep improving.”

Improvement before Liverpool take on Chelsea in the Super Cup is more than a bit necessary. Scoring 4 in one half against Norwich was definitely wonderful to watch, but Liverpool will need to tighten up and control the game far more in Istanbul.

“The most important thing is to focus on the game ahead of us,” van Dijk added. ”It was a good game against Norwich and now it is time to recover before fully focusing on the task ahead, which is Chelsea.

”We take the game how it is, they have a lot of quality. They won the Europa League last season and we know a bit about what we are going to face but over the next couple of days we are going to analyse them properly.

”Whatever happens we have to be ready for a big game.”

Source: liverpooloffside.sbnation.com