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Virgil Van Dijk Has More Mistakes Leading To Goals Than Harry Maguire



Virgil van Dijk had a statistically worse game against Arsenal than Harry Maguire's had all season, and has made more errors leading to goals than the Manchester United centre back.

It wasn't a good night for Liverpool as they lost to the Gunners and denied themselves the chances of breaking Manchester City's record 100 points total in the Premier League.

Van Dijk had a very unusually off night and his error directly led to the first goal, as his dreadful back pass was intercepted by Alexandre Lacazette, who then scored Arsenal's first of the game.

That mistake was the first of the Dutchman's season that led directly to a goal but, according to the stats, that's still one more than Maguire has made.

Admittedly that will be a hard fact to swallow for many fans, even the most ardent of United supporters, as the Englishman seems to have made some pretty high profile errors recently.

In the first game back since Covid-19 his poor defending against Spurs led to Steven Bergwijn's goal, against Bournemouth he was nutmegged by Junior Stanislas for the opener and on Monday night he was accused of marking Aaron Wan-Bissaka as Michael Obafemi equalised for Southampton.

According to stats site WhoScored.com, that game against the Saints was the former Leicester City man's worst performances of the season, as he got a 6.28 rating.

However Van Dijk was given a worse score for Wednesday night's game, as his error contributed to getting just 5.71 out of 10.

Van Dijk obviously transformed Liverpool's defence when he moved from Southampton, for a then world record fee of £75 million, in January 2018.

With the former Celtic centre back in the team Klopp's side have become one of the best defences in Europe and have won the Champions League and Premier League.

There is no doubt that Maguire, whose £80 million move last summer broke the record, has improved United somewhat but not to the same extent that the Dutchman has had on his team.

The 29-year-old isn't likely to have as bad a night as he did against Arsenal any time soon, and with the title well secured it won't make too much of a difference to him.

He did at least take blame for the loss, saying, "I made a mistake. I take the blame for it. I take it as a man and we move on."

It's just his mistake was one more leading to a goal than Maguire has made all season, statistically speaking anyway.





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