Liverpool have been handed a massive Virgil van Dijk boost.
The Daily Mail has reported that the Dutchman has reported back for duties at a time when the Reds are looking light on numbers.
Jurgen Klopp only has one senior defender available for the Leicester City clash, and that’s the highly injury prone Joel Matip. Basically, it’s not looking good.
We’ve got Nat Phillips and Rhys Williams available for selection, although Williams was taken out of England U21 duties with a sore hip. One of those two will have to fill in alongside Matip and hope to keep Leicester’s electric forward line at bay.
Could we be seeing Virgil van Dijk back sooner than we expected? According to the MailSport, he’s been back in light recovery training as he begins to get over his knee surgery.
The Dutchman is back in ‘low impact training’, said the article, which feels like he’s doing things ahead of schedule. If anyone can shake off his awful injury and get back to Premier League action earlier than expected, it’ll be van Dijk.
After his period of low impact training, van Dijk will be able to ramp things up and start the second phase of his recovery.
Since the former Southampton man joined Liverpool in January 2018, he’s played 130 games – more than he’s played for any other club. That shows how important van Dijk has been to the Reds and to Klopp, who was incredibly loath to drop the star.
Out of all the defenders, van Dijk is the man who the side was built around. The Dutchman was the first real star to join the side and helped to create that iron spine that relies on Alisson and Fabinho.
Liverpool aren’t the same side without him, and we’ve seen that since his ACL injury.
As well as the Dutchman, Joe Gomez could be out for the rest of the season after he hurt his knee while on England training and the bad news has been flying at us thick and fast.