Is he still ill? Van Dijk's difficult game against Fulham that hurt Liverpool in the Carabao Cup

The start of the League Cup semi-final match was very difficult for our captain, Dutchman Virgil van Dijk, as he did not have the best response to the Brazilian Willian's goal in favour of the London team that put the score at 1-0, a situation that makes you wonder if he has really recovered from the illness that left him out of Sunday's match against Arsenal.

The Reds played the London side at Anfield on Wednesday and German manager Jurgen Klopp made several changes to his line-up, leaving out Uruguayan striker Darwin Nunez and bringing on youngster Connor Bradley to replace vice-captain Trent Alexander Arnold.

It was in the 19th minute that the visitors opened the scoring with a goal from the Brazilian striker who took advantage of a ball that was left inside the box after a bad rebound from our captain who headed the ball back into the box leaving the rest of the defence unable to respond to try to prevent the goal.

Van Dijk's mistakes

Just 5 minutes later the Dutchman was cautioned for an alleged assault on Brazilian Andreas Pereira for making contact to his face. Shortly afterwards he also committed an apparent foul on Mexican striker Raul Jimenez but the referee did not award a booking and it should be remembered that there was no VAR involvement in this match.