Virgil van Dijk set a new Champions League record last night as Liverpool hail ‘incredible’ feat
Virgil van Dijk claimed a new Champions League record with a rarefied individual feat in Liverpool’s 6-0 demolition of Qarabag on Wednesday night.
In contrast to how the season as a whole has transpired, the Reds booked their place in the round of 16 in serene fashion, brushing aside their Azerbaijani opponents at Anfield and killing the game as a contest by the early stages of the second half.
It wasn’t all positive for Arne Slot though as the defensive injury crisis intensified even further with Jeremie Frimpong having to limp off with a suspected hamstring problem after just four minutes, which now leaves the largely untried Calvin Ramsay as our only natural senior right-back.
Van Dijk claims hat-trick of assists
It was a much better night for his fellow Dutch defender Van Dijk, who helped himself to a hat-trick of assists against Qarabag, with Opta confirming (via X) that the 34-year-old is the first centre-back to achieve that feat in a single UEFA Champions League match.
Liverpool’s official X account also highlighted that ‘incredible’ piece of history from the club captain, who nodded the ball down for Alexis Mac Allister to score the opener, sent a long-range pass towards Hugo Ekitike for the Frenchman’s goal and teed up Federico Chiesa to round off the scoring in the 90th minute.
Van Dijk was excellent all-round against Qarabag
Van Dijk came into last night’s match off the back of a difficult outing against Bournemouth in which he was culpable for the Cherries’ first goal, with Chris Sutton subsequently declaring that the Reds defender’s levels have ‘dropped significantly’ from last season.
However, the Dutchman showed that class is permanent with his history-making performance on Wednesday, even when accounting for the paucity of the opposition, with the Liverpool Echo‘s Ian Doyle noting how he ‘assumed much of the defensive responsibility’ in addition to his hat-trick of assists.
That appraisal is backed up by the 34-year-old’s statistics from last night (via Sofascore), which illustrate the impact he had at both ends of the pitch.
| Assists | 3 |
| Passes completed | 64/73 (88% success) |
| Duels won | 4/5 (80%) |
| Shots | 4 |
| Big chances missed | 2 |
| Clearances | 4 |
| Key passes | 3 |
| Big chances created | 3 |
| Accurate long balls | 6 |
Van Dijk has actually had the second-most goal contributions of any Liverpool player in the league phase of the Champions League, with his haul of two goals and three assists surpassed only by Dominik Szoboszlai with four of each (WhoScored).
He won’t come up against opposition as obliging as Qarabag every week, but the captain’s dominant performance on Wednesday was the perfect response to the criticism which had been levelled at him in recent days.
Let’s hope he can maintain those standards in our upcoming Premier League fixtures against Newcastle and Manchester City, which’ll no doubt be considerably tougher.
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