Wayne Rooney slams Virgil van Dijk for his “12:30 kick-off” remark after Everton game
Wayne Rooney was not happy with Virgil van Dijk‘s post-game comments on Wednesday.
Liverpool lost the Merseyside Derby away at Everton by a 2-0 scoreline and are now firmly third in this season’s three-horse title race with less than a month remaining in the Premier League season.
After the game, the Dutchman was honest with his side’s assessment but made an interesting remark towards the end, as quoted by Manchester Evening News.
“Listen, very disappointed in so many ways and I think everyone has to look at themselves in the mirror and look at their own performances and if they really gave everything and do they really want to win the league?
“We are still fighting and still have games after tonight, but if we play like we did overall in the game like today, not winning challenges and giving the ref an opportunity to give free-kicks like he did many times, we have no chance to win the title.
“It’s a tough one and obviously we have to do much better against a side who is fighting against relegation. We have to focus on the 12:30 kick-off again.”
Van Dijk after the Everton game
Rooney picked up on the “12:30 kick-off” remark of the Liverpool captain, criticising him for bringing it up immediately after losing a local derby at a key stage of the season.
“That Liverpool team should be wanting to be on the pitch tomorrow.
“I think the worrying thing there – and I think it’s happened a lot throughout the season as well. He’s the captain and he’s talking about Liverpool getting outfought but again we’re hearing about 12:30 kick-offs after he’s just lost a derby.
“That Liverpool team should be wanting to be on the pitch tomorrow morning to get the next game going. When you lose a game, especially a derby game, you want the next game to come quick.
“We’ve heard it so many times this season with Liverpool about 12:30 kick-offs. Get on with it! That’s part of your job! Get on with it and you should be ready to play.”
Rooney’s take on Van Dijk’s comments, as quoted by MEN
There are two sides to this coin
Rooney has a point. When you have lost such an important game, regardless of the overarching context of the season, the last thing your fans want to hear about is the timing of the next game’s kick-off.
That Van Dijk brought it up so casually indicates that it is a matter being discussed very frequently in the Liverpool dressing room for players to fixate on it, and credit to Rooney for picking up on what was essentially a throwaway comment.
Also, Rooney’s criticism of Van Dijk’s remarks makes perfect sense given his own personality and career. Having been one of the shiniest stars of Sir Alex Ferguson’s Man United side of the noughties, Rooney, like many of his peers at the time, would not have cared much about the timing of the next game after such a result, and, as he himself says, would have wanted to enter the pitch again as soon as possible to make up for the dropped points. That’s the level at which United-operated back in the day.
But the comment is not without reason. Fixture congestion in the footballing calendar is a genuine issue that can prove to be the wrecking ball that breaks the sport irrevocably in the near future, but that is too big an argument to deal with here.
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Nevertheless, an issue it is. All the managers having to deal with midweek fixtures have complained about having to play games on Saturday, which is part of the culture that has come on the back of football administrators setting up fixture timings based on TV revenue while continuously looking to increase the number of games per year with absolutely no regard for player welfare. Muscular injuries among modern players have increased for a reason, and indeed Rooney’s career itself came to a premature end in no small part because of the amount of games he played in his teens and early 20s.
