He humbled van Dijk and could now arrive as Liverpool's star reinforcement

The 2022-2023 season is over for European football clubs, however, activity continues at national team level where several Liverpool players are still active. One of them is our central defender Virgil van Dijk, who has played in both of the Netherlands' matches in the UEFA Nations League.

However, the results have not been as expected for the captain of the Netherlands national team, as his team lost the matches against Croatia and Italy and were left empty-handed in the UEFA tournament. In addition, the performances of the Dutch defense have left much to be desired and have raised criticism from former players who consider that van Dijk has had a considerable drop in level during the season.

In the last match in which Virgil van Dijk and the Netherlands national team played against Italy for the third place in the Nations League, the Italians went over the Dutch defense, defeating them 3-1, and one of the most pointed players after the defeat was precisely the captain van Dijk, who could not contain the attack of the Italian team led by Federico Chiesa, who was responsible for scoring Italy's last goal.

It is precisely Federico Chiesa one of the players who could arrive at Anfield next season, as Jürgen Klopp would be interested in strengthening the attack and helping Mohamed Salah throughout the campaign, so Chiesa could be the ideal player for that role. Chiesa is under contract until 2025, but the Liverpool board could try to sign him for around €40 million.

Criticism of van Dijk for his duel with Chiesa

After the Netherlands' defeat against Italy in the UEFA Nations League, former Dutch player Rafael Van der Vaart strongly criticized Virgil van Dijk, as he considered that in Fereico Chiesa's goal "he did nothing". “For 20 minutes I thought: he is back, but that moment with Chiesa… he is basically doing nothing”, he said.