When Jurgen Klopp explained his reasoning behind substituting Virgil van Dijk at half-time in Liverpool’s 3-1 loss to Brentford on Monday, fears of a potential spell on the sidelines were quickly allayed.
“Virgil felt a little bit in the muscle and said it is fine, and he is a very good judge of these kind of things,” the German told reporters. “But I didn’t want to take any risks. The physios looked quite happy when I said we don’t take risks. It’s not an injury, he just felt the intensity.”
Yet just two days later and it has emerged that such a belief was premature. Van Dijk has actually suffered a hamstring injury and is now poised to miss the rest of January.
