Why can’t Virgil Van Dijk Win Headers?
How Liverpool's defense has declined with Van Dijk's aerial prowess
Liverpool’s flying start to the season was halfway halted with a 3-3 tie to newly-promoted Brentford. The game was reminiscent of the early Klopp-era Liverpool. Those sides created chances for fun, broke at pace, but gave up goals in a way that made no lead feel safe.
In Klopp’s first season, 2015-16, Liverpool gave up 50 goals in 38 league matches. Brendan Rodgers started the season at the helm, but, regardless of the manager, Liverpool needed to tighten up at the back. And tighten-up they would. In each of the next three seasons, Liverpool lowered their goals against, going from 50 to 42, to 38, and finally to 22 in the 2018-19 season.
What made the defensive improvement all the more impressive is that they didn’t have to sacrifice attack to shore up their defense. In fact, the opposite occurred. As Liverpool’s defense improved, so too did their attack. This double-pronged improvement was how a team could go from finishing 8th in the Premier League to being the greatest second-place team in history with 97 points and a Champions League title in 2018-19.
The full explanation for how Liverpool improved so rapidly on both ends is a story that deserves its own book. However, the quick explanation takes but one name, Virgil Van Dijk.
Attributing all of Liverpool’s success to Van Dijk is unfair to the organization and his teammates, but his arrival did spur an incredible defensive improvement. In January of 2018, Liverpool put their Neymar-Coutinho-Blood-Oil money to good use. They ponied up £75 million, then a world record for a defender, to bring the colossal Dutchman to Anfield. It was money well spent, as his introduction made an immediate impact.
Pre-VVD Liverpool had conceded 28 goals in 24 games and was averaging 0.99 expected goals allowed and 1.91 expected goals per game. Those are solid metrics, but not nearly good enough to challenge the Pep Guardiola-Manchester City Blood-Oil-Money experiment. Van Dijk would play 14 games for Liverpool that season and his impact was obvious. From that moment on, Liverpool conceded 10 goals over 14 games, averaged 0.73 expected goals allowed, and 1.92 expected goals per game.
Van Dijk allowed Liverpool to maintain their high-flying attack while shaving off nearly 0.25 goals a game. That may not seem like much, but over a full season, that equates to 9.5 goals. It wouldn’t have been enough to catch the 100 point City team, but it was enough for Liverpool to make it to the Champions League Final and set the stage for the two greatest seasons in their Premier League history.
Over the next two seasons, Liverpool averaged 98 points a season, won one Premier League, and one Champions League. They combined a potent attack, 2.3 goals per game, with a stingy defense, 0.72 goals allowed per game, as they embarked on two of the most impressive seasons in the history of English football.
Unfortunately, their time at the top wouldn’t continue, and once again, it coincided with a Van Dijk absence. The play that ended Van Dijk’s season will be forever etched into the lore of the Merseyside derby. Following a cleared corner, Fabinho lofted a ball to the back post to Van Dijk. As Van Dijk tracked the ball in the air, Jordan Pickford, Everton’s keeper came out to ‘play’ the ball and instead slide tackled an unsuspecting Van Dijk and tore his ACL.
Pickford’s challenge, simply put, was the act of a mentally incompetent human being. Goalies aren’t taught to do that. He injured one of the world’s best players because he panicked while on the job. There was no red. There was no suspension. Just a host of death threats made towards him and his family. Obviously, death threats are too extreme a punishment, but Pickford deserved to suffer for robbing Van Dijk of an entire season.
Now to the actual point of the article (thanks for sticking around), what makes Van Dijk such an exceptional defender is that he’s literally awesome at everything. He wins his tackles, he’s adept at picking the ball off, his positional sense is uncanny, he organizes his teammates like Marie Kondo organizes your life, his passing is calm, accurate, and deadly, but most of all, he wins aerial duels like the Red Baron.
With a player like Van Dijk, it’s hard to capture his impact through statistics. The best defenders are great because they know how to prevent defending. It’s better to prevent a pass from ever being played into an area than intercepting it, just like it’s better to prevent a player from ever dribbling than winning a tackle. World-class defenders can seem like practitioners of the Dao, action through inaction, except when it comes to aerial duels.
When Jurgen Klopp came to Liverpool he brought his Gegenpressing along for the ride. The basic principles are simple, defend high up the field, create traps to win the ball back, and turn defense into attack. The system is reliant on defensively engaged forwards, tireless mid-fielders, but, most of all, centrebacks that can win long-balls.
If a press is working, the offense’s only outlet is to lump the ball over the midfield. This means that when Liverpool’s press is on, their centrebacks need to win their aerial duels. Van Dijk, unsurprisingly, is awesome in this regard. He’s 6’4, is strong, can leap, and if he had been born in another country might be in the NBA.
Dating back to the 2017-18 season, the first-year data is available, in every full season, Van Dijk finished in the top-ten in aerial duels won, and from 2017-18 to 2019-20 finished in the top-five in aerial duel win-percentage. In other words, he was a high-volume high-efficiency aerial monster, or, if you’re a basketball fan, he’s the Steph Curry of aerial duels.
Then, something changed. Starting in the 2020-21 season, Van Dijk simply stopped winning his aerial duels. Over his first 90 Premier League games with Liverpool, he won 80.5% of his aerial duels, but since the start of the 2020-21 season, in 10 games, he’s only won 67.2%. This isn’t simply Van Dijk shaking off the post-injury rust. He stopped winning his aerial duels at an elite rate before the ACL injury, with a 69.6% win rate in 2020-21. As his aerial ability has decreased, so has Liverpool’s defensive fortitude.
Over Van Djik’s first 90 Liverpool games, the team allowed 0.9 expected goals per game. In their past 10, they’ve allowed 1.37. That’s a jump of nearly half a goal a game. Owing all of Liverpool’s improved defense in 2018 to Van Dijk is silly, just as believing that him losing one more header a game has led to a near half goal jump in expected goals allowed.
Van Dijk’s decreased aerial ability definitely doesn’t help Liverpool’s defense, but the team appears to have embraced a more attacking mindset. Over Van Dijk’s past 10 games, Liverpool has averaged 2.6 expected goals per game, compared to 2.27 over the previous 90. Yet, one has to wonder, has Van Dijk lost a step, and if so, can he ever regain it?
From the moment Liverpool brought in Van Dijk to the moment he tore his ACL, he played nearly every single minute of Liverpool’s Premier League and Champions League matches. There’s a chance that his early-season dip last year was due to fatigue, randomness, or new tactics. Just as it’s possible that his early-season aerial form is a product of coming off a serious knee injury.
Virgil Van Dijk is still a speacial defender. A knee injury can’t rob him of his timing, positioning, and passing, but it can rob him of his speed and leaping ability. In one sense, it appears that Liverpool’s defense lives and dies by Van Dijk’s aerial ability. Obviously, that’s too reductive. Jurgen Klopp is too smart and Van Dijk too talented to not adjust. In a few weeks, this post may look silly, and as a Liverpool fan, I sure hope so. Yet, part of me wonders, if the best version of Van Dijk is no longer with us. Part of me wonders, why can’t Van Dijk win headers anymore?