INJURY SCARE! Virgil Van Dijk Withdraws From International Duty | Liverpool News Update

Ste Hull (0:00)

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Hey, everyone, welcome to The Redmen TV. It's your latest Liverpool News show. I'm Ste Hull. It is Tuesday, November 10th. Good morning and welcome. Hope you're all doing well. We've got injury updates on Virgil Van Dijk and Dom Sarbers-Leiter to come, Alisson's contract, and then a chat about Manchester United to finish as well. And Michael Kadik, who appears, is on his way out. That relates to Liverpool, of course, because the next game that Manchester United have is at Anfield. New manager bound to, they're going to get in, he'll be in charge, all that good stuff. Yeah, we've got all that to come. So morning to Kyle and morning to just memes who are already in the YouTube chat. Everyone else, shout out. If you're watching along and you want to get your thoughts in on the show, please do so. It's an interactive show. We want you guys to get involved too. Otherwise, you're just listening to me reading out the news, which is fine because that's what the news is. But also, it's nice to get you guys all involved as well. We are going to start then a little bit of an injury update slash concern slash worry potentially about Liverpool's captain Virgil Van Dijk. So Virgil Van Dijk has withdrew from the Netherlands squad for their upcoming fixtures this month. Liverpool's statement is basically saying, they just say a statement was released by the Dutch national team to say that Virgil Van Dijk did not return fifth from the Reds Premier League victory at the Palace on Sunday. So we will miss the matches against Greece and Germany in the Nations League. To switch over very, very quickly, James Pearce has reported of the athletic, of course, Van Dijk has been playing with a minor issue in recent weeks. He has now withdrawn from the Dutch squad. So fingers crossed, this is just Liverpool and the Netherlands just taking it easy with Virgil Van Dijk. And we hope that there are no worries for when he returns, when Liverpool return in a couple of weekend's time to face Manchester United at Anfield. The last thing we want is to go into that game without our club captain. It's interesting because we have noticed in recent weeks, Virgil maybe missing your game or getting taken off at certain points of the game, which very rarely happens, of course, you know, subbed off after like an hour or 70 minutes or subbed on as it was in last so Liverpool and Van Dijk have clearly been managing a little issue.

And it makes sense. These are competitive games for what it's worth. It's worth caveating now, you know, as we go through all these international fixtures updates, they're all competitive games. It's the Nations League here in Europe, there's qualifiers across the world as well. There's a couple of countries playing friendlies, but those especially in Europe are playing competitive games. My hope is Liverpool and Virgil are just being very smart here on the national side as well. Whereas the Nations League is competitive, but it's not the be all and end all, I suppose you'd expect the Netherlands, you know, to use that route to qualify. If they can't, they already get through in their normal qualifying procedure, the way the Nations League works is a whole different story.

Rare as it says here, it's put on the Reds first above his country, you'll never walk alone. I don't think it's that, to be honest with you mate, because we as fans, I think we see international football slightly different than the players. There is no prada on it for most players than representing their country in competitive matches, especially when you're the captain of the country as well. So we're going to talk about Sobozlaj in a minute and it's the same thing for him. National team captain, they want to go and perform for their countries, they want to help them qualify for these major tournaments, they want to win things, of course they do. It's a major honor. To win the highest of highest honors with your country, is probably seen more favorably in legacy terms than maybe even win stuff with your club, because they are so rare every four years for these competitions. So I don't think it's all that. I think it's more being sensible, for lack of a better phrase. In fact, it's probably the best word. You know, the last thing the Netherlands needs is Virgil Van Dijk picking up a major injury and missing more game time and being out for a long time, in and out of the season, all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, I think it's just, I think it's a sensible decision. Hopefully, we haven't got too many updates on what the exact injury is, but Virgil has been playing through it. And to be fair, I think for the most part, Virgil has been still been pretty good over these last few weeks. Liverpool's defense as a whole has been a bit shaky, but I don't think you can pin much of that on Virgil Van Dijk. He's still been performing pretty well, up against some big physical strikers in the last few days. You know, Strand Larsson, before that, it was big Rom La Carcoum. Virgil, for the most part, has been fine. Hopefully, it's not too serious. And like I say, two weeks off, and Virgil's back in action and captain under the pool against Manchester United. We definitely want to keep an eye on him. Of course, if more updates come, we will bring those to you. The next story is about Dominik Soboslai. Dominik Soboslai has reported to Hungary's international set up with an injury, but they are planning to quote everything possible to play him. So obviously, there's a picture via our mates at this Anfield of Soboslai arriving for international duty, but the Hungarian Football Federation have said that Dom Soboslai has got a bit of a knee sprain and they will do everything possible to ensure he is available as soon as possible. They've said the decision on his availability for the upcoming matches will be almost certainly made at the last minute, and so Hungary. And I think the Nations League is maybe a bit more prevalent for Hungary, given they're not always expected to get through the normal qualification phase for the competitions. So they play Georgia away and then it's Northern Ireland at home in their Nations League group. So Soboslai has got this knee injury. Obviously, he came on this picture from there with the strap on his knee after he picked up a tweak in the first half and Oni Iraloa said something like he overextended the knee slightly. He lasted like another 20 odd minutes of the second half before tre came on. Obviously, it go down and Iraloa said like the last thing we need, of course, is players to be getting injured on international duty. So we'll wait and see what it goes with Sobo. But he has reported for international duty, unlike Virgil Van Dijk. And they're gonna wait and see. Those fixtures for Hungary, they come, they play on Saturday and then on Tuesday. So there's still plenty of time. So that's probably what they're waiting for. Again, a way to Georgia on Saturday, a home to Northern Ireland on Tuesday. Wait and see on Sobo and his knee issue. Now, Liverpool will be hoping, of course, and expecting that Hungary do everything right by him. They don't play an injured player. But Sobo has only just come back from a muscle issue as well. We have to bear that in mind.