If you watch VVD pre injury and then watch him now and think that he hasn't lost a step, then I don't know what to tell you
..... Slower and less likely to engage. Still very cerebral, just doesn't have the speed or confidence to close guys down one on one anymore
All of what you're describing I've seen it...this season only. Last year he looked just like the regular Virgil Van Dijk to me. Smart, quick, decisive, confident. This year, he looks slow, sluggish and always one step behind everything around him, but that is true with about 90% of the squad this season. Part of the problem, specifically for the backline, is how our press has been very very poor from top to bottom. In the system we play, when your frontline doesn't lead an exemplary press, it forces the midfield to try and compensate and you immediately lose your compactness, the midfield is then easily bypassed and the whole backline spends the game on the backfoot because of the acres of space left between them and the midfield.
Its not a coincidence that TAA also, all of a sudden, looks so bad. Our defensive setup relies on the rest of the team leading an excellent press or else they spend the game making runs back towards their goal that 90% of the other backlines in world football don't have to do and that would make any defender look bad. Combine this with the fact VVD himself is, this season, affected by the same lack of energy and form the rest of the squad is affected by and I think we don't have to worry too much about him suddenly being finished.
Some are having it worse than others, some are racking up very descent numbers despite their form, but if you look at the whole, squad player by player during a game, everyone looks slower and one step behind the opponent (both mentally and physically). The few players I could say are part of the exception are Alisson, Konate, Bajcetic, and to a certain extent Nunez and Gakpo.
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