Football injury expert Ben Dinnery appeared on a recent edition of the Football Social Daily podcast to talk about Liverpool centre-back Virgil van Dijk after he suffered an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury during last Saturday’s Merseyside Derby.
As per the BBC, this injury, which the Dutch defender will need to undergo surgery for, is set to keep the £72m-rated man on the sidelines for a ‘lengthy’ amount of time, though this article does state that it is not yet entirely clear just how long Van Dijk is set to be out of action for following his ACL injury.
However, Dinnery shared his thoughts on the potential extent and impact of this injury on the Netherlands international during this recent edition of the Football Social Daily podcast.
He said: “So, what we do know – there’s nothing official from the club with regards to this – but looking at [the] mechanism of injury – i.e how the impact came from Jordan Pickford and how the knee bent and hyperextended, it looks like there’s damage certainly to the anterior cruciate ligament, we know that for sure, and reading from the Liverpool website, the keyword for me was ‘ligaments.’
“Now on those types of injuries, those types of setbacks, the ACL is rarely done in isolation and there could be, also, damage there to the medial collateral ligament. On first viewings, I actually thought there could be, potentially, damage there to the posterior [cruciate ligament] – the PCL – but, hopefully, just the MCL and the ACL.
“The default from players tends to be – ‘I will come back better, stronger, faster’ – the reality of the situation is very few players rarely do that. We’re talking about elite level performers playing at their highest optimum levels. So, you take that away and it’s going to be a long, hard road to recovery.
“You often see that players who suffer this type of injury maybe change their behaviours on the pitch. Decision-making, the way they play, they mightn’t go for certain balls, they may change their characteristics on the pitch and certainly, after any long-term injury, it’s not uncommon for players to suffer soft tissue or muscular problems just as their bodies are being built-up to tolerate the demands of the game once more.”
Can Liverpool win the Premier League without Van Dijk?
YES
NO
TIF Thoughts on what Dinnery had to say about Van Dijk’s injury…
As can be seen in what this football injury expert had to say, it seems that his initial impression of Van Dijk’s injury is not an encouraging one for Reds supporters, as he thinks that the Dutchman may have injured his PCL which he suggested would make this injury notably worse than if he only injured his ACL and MCL.
It is clear that Van Dijk has been a significant part of the Merseyside club’s success in recent years, with the 29-year-old defender even being named as the runner-up to Lionel Messi for the 2019 Ballon d’Or, so with it looking like he is set to be sidelined for at least the majority of the remainder of the 2020/21 campaign, perhaps Liverpool fans should be eagerly awaiting confirmation of what exactly the extent of his injury is.