Gary Neville
๐ค SpeakerVoice Profile Active
This person's voice can be automatically recognized across podcast episodes using AI voice matching.
Appearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
You're obviously a lot closer to it.
Have they changed something internally in the last 18 months?
Is he doing more work on the training pitch defensively?
Obviously, I've watched him a lot, Virgil van Dijk, now in the last few months, but tonight we had a really good view of him in this second half, and he's absolutely immense, and he's immense in both boxes.
You see him heading it out of his own box.
And you see him here, he just steps away from the game as it comes out.
And then as the Wolves defenders are sort of trying to push out, he's arriving in.
And it's the timing of the run, like a centre-forward would make the run.
And then it's the finish, it's the composure.
It's not an easy one, but he manages to sort of control himself and get a good contact on it.
And it was worthy, to be honest with you, tonight of Liverpool.
If you think about what they're doing now, they're winning games with nil against them.
And you thought in that second half there was a period where this could be tricky.
At 1-0, Wolves could come, but they just went and got that second goal and took the game away from Wolves and they're making things a lot more simple for themselves.
No, it's one of the factors, it's one of the reasons I asked Virgil van Dijk that question about the different partners that he's had.
You've seen James Miller play at right-back tonight, and we've seen others play there.
It's not as if you think about that Chelsea back four, five, it never seemed to change for about three or four seasons, whereas this Liverpool team, it is having injuries, it is having to adapt, it is having to play different back fours, and they're still defending well through it.
And that's the incredible thing, and what Jamie just said before, I never saw this coming.
You can't go from being a 50-goal conceded a season over three or four years, I know it's 41 years, and then go to this without just something incredible happening.
It's personnel, obviously, but also the work that they're doing and their attitude towards defending, because they really were harming themselves by conceding so many soft goals.