Liverpool defender Virgil van Dijk has been defended, with it claimed that there was no way he could have maintained the previous high standards he set.
That’s the opinion of analyst Kenneth Perez, who, via Soccer News, has moved to dispel some of the criticism being aimed at the Liverpool star.
The centre-back has recently found himself engaged in something of a war of words with pundits in the Netherlands, with Dutch legends Marco van Basten and Ruud Gullit criticising him for his performance in the 4-0 loss to France.
He bit back at those remarks following the Netherland’s win over Gibraltar by claiming that such criticism was useless to him and that mistakes were always going to happen.
That didn’t go down well in his homeland, though, with the defender labelled a ‘first class wimp’ and further criticised by analyst Gertjan Verbeek.
That’s not gone down well with Perez, who has now moved to defend the Liverpool star amid the criticism coming his way.
“I don’t agree with that at all,” he told ESPN’s Football Talk, relayed by Soccer News.
“He has set the bar so incredibly high that every little beauty flaw is seen as a grave error. He was fantastic every game in a two-year period.
“Nobody got past him, he was never injured… Nobody dared to look for him anymore, because it was hopeless anyway.
“To say he can’t do anything anymore and that it’s too little… He’s at a slightly more normal level now, he’s been at such a high level. That was the benchmark, but nobody can sustain that his whole career.”
