As if needing another affirmation, Virgil van Dijk sent an emotional message to The Kop stands about his love for Liverpool. The Dutch center-back is known for being calm, rarely showing excessive emotions, but after the header to increase the score, he kissed the badge - a moment enough for Anfield to explode.
The challenging title defense season clearly put Van Dijk under great pressure. He was the leader of the dressing room during the period when the team was scrutinized, and also received much criticism about his form. Prominent is the opinion from Wayne Rooney that this center-back is no longer at his peak as before.
Those criticisms are not completely unfounded. In fact, very few Liverpool players maintain stability throughout this season. Perhaps only Dominik Szoboszlai is a relative exception. Even in the win against West Ham United, Van Dijk also made a mistake when letting Tomas Soucek overcome, leading to a goal to narrow the score at the beginning of the second half.
However, his third goal in the last 6 matches in the Premier League is extremely important. It helps Liverpool maintain the winning rhythm in the top 4 race and at the same time emphasizes the impressive revival in set-piece situations.
Previously, Hugo Ekitike opened the scoring with his 11th goal in the Premier League this season, while Alexis Mac Allister continued to score from another set piece.
However, the 5-2 victory did not completely reflect the situation. West Ham played evenly at times, and Liverpool's defense still revealed worrying gaps. Jarrod Bowen created a situation leading to Valentin Castellanos' goal, before Axel Disasi's own goal made the score even bigger.
In the opposite direction, Jeremie Frimpong's return is very encouraging, and young talent Rio Ngumoha also brings positive energy. However, another name that is disappointing is Mohamed Salah.
Salah has gone through 10 consecutive Premier League matches without scoring. The departure of Trent Alexander-Arnold and the change in attacking structure seem to have a clear impact on him. The Egyptian striker appears lonely, lacks sharpness and sometimes makes unreasonable decisions. Typical is the situation at the end of the match when he ignored the option of passing the ball to Frimpong to handle it himself.
However, when the team still wins, Arne Slot probably doesn't need to worry too much. But if Liverpool wants to go deep in the UEFA Champions League and maintain the race in the Premier League, they will need Salah to regain his killer instinct - just like Van Dijk responded with actions on the pitch.
I am very satisfied because first of all that is the reason we won the match. Second, people say "played very well", but in my opinion we used to play better when losing and also played better when conceding goals from set pieces.
In the first half of the season, almost every set-piece we let the opponent have turned into a goal conceded. When you start scoring from dead balls, everything looks brighter and much more positive" - Slot said after the match.
