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Back to just where he left off. Funny how opposite fans thoughts he was done after the injury because of his slip against Hertha Berlin.
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Didnāt realised todayās match against Crystal Palace was his 100th league match for LFC. 
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VVD is one of my very favourite Liverpool players of all time, bar none. It was very painful to me on several levels when he went down with his injury last year. He was exceptional, a true Rolls Royce of a defender, and looks the part too.
My question is, has anyone done any āanalysisā of pre- and post-injury VVD? I know our results (especially defensively) have been fantastic, but is VVD āthe sameā or has he possibly lost a step or half? Or is it too early to tell?
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Iād say right now itās too early to tell if heāll get back to where he was. But heās looking good right now. Playing well and leading the line. Think we will know more after Christmas when weāve had the run of three games a week.
So far so good.
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Too early to tell, but the signs in my opinion is heās back to his amazing best. Those diagonal long passes are inch perfect and I realised how difficult they are to execute when I think Gomez tried one against Milan that went over the top of Salah.
Defensively I think he needs to be tested further to conclude, but he fared well against the likes of Lukaku. The one goal we conceded was a freak of a header by Havertz. Having said that Alisson and Matip have had huge say in us keeping the GA so low.
Games against the likes of City, United may provide better view, but not too worried. Half of his job is done by his mere presence and game reading and I remember him in those brilliant run of games he hardly had to break sweat and made it look so effortless. His reaction, I remember, when he had to sprint to make up for a mistake used to be funny.
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Was a bit concerned after seeing him live against Palace, looked slower and tired more than youād expect. Very poor today against Brentford.
Hope heās just taking a bit of time to get back up to speed, heās definitely not there yet.
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I thought the same. Palace didnāt have enough up front to properly and consistently test him, Brentford did. I think he lost his first aerial duel maybe four or five minutes into the match, it made me feel very uneasy. He did almost nothing to dispel that uneasiness throughout the match. The whole game, the body language of players reminded me a bit of that Aston Villa loss, it wasnāt just him.
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He didnāt look too bad near the end when a Brentford player was running towards goal and he got back and cleared it. I think the main problem was Brentford attacked with so many players him and Joel got out numbered and Joel also trying to cover for trent also, maybe we should have added a 3rd cb when we went 3-2 up.
Or a fourth goal.
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I donāt actually think they had that big of an overload bar on Trent. If you watch the 3rd goal, Robbo is 10 yards from the crosser, Van Dijk is in no-mans land covering no-one, Matip has 1 player and Trent 3ā¦
Our shape was terrible, the worry is how easy it seems to break our defensive line and force it into a dog leg of chaos.
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Maybe I was lulled into a false sense of security by his performance against Lukaku but he hasnāt looked himself against Palace and definitely not yesterday. Matip has been so good that perhaps he has masked the fact that Virgil isnāt quite at it but Matip had a shocker yesterday and it was a shock to see CBs of that quality so easily bullied.
Virgil hasnāt lost his ground speed as he showed when he caught up Toney late on but he doesnāt seem to have much spring in his heels and he looked weak on their second goal. Itās all understandable given the injury but we wonāt be able to play him as regularly as we have in the past just yet. Thatās why Iām not worried about game time for Gomez and Konate. Theyāll play plenty of games this season.
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Too soon to worry about Virgil and returning to his old levels? A couple below at the moment and by fuck do we need raising it more than ever.
I saw a lot of complaints about him today, but not much wrong in the way he played. It felt like all the trouble city were giving us were in areas of the pitch you wouldnt expect your CB to be able to have much influence over. Which isnt surprising seeing as they didnt play a striker. I think he was inolved in getting beaten i one of their mazy midfield runs (silva maybe) but didnt see too much else.
I think that was jus a good example of a good team being smart about loading up in the area where they think they can hurt someone and ignoring the other areas
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I donāt think we have to dramatize over the fact that he does look a little bit rusty nor pretend like heās not. Room for improvement over the next few weeks for us defensively, both as a group and 1v1.
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He has played in eight of our 10 games and also a couple for the NT. Playing for Liverpool is tricky in the best of times and VVD has returned from a lengthy lay-off. Rest him for the Watford game.
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