The increasingly outspoken pundit Wayne Rooney has reawakened his ongoing feud with Liverpool centre back Virgil van Dijk, claiming that the Dutch captain is “too involved” in the outside noise surrounding the defending champions while insisting that “there’s something not right” at Anfield.
Rooney and Van Dijk have been locked in an elongated war of words over the past fortnight. The former Manchester United forward played the role of instigator when he questioned the skipper’s leadership qualities on his podcast earlier this season. Van Dijk bit back at that accusation in a postmatch interview before the pair were forced into an awkward face-to-face confrontation.
With the towering Dutchman looming over his shoulder, Rooney joked that he was finished prodding at Liverpool’s captain. That promise didn’t last long.
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“From a performance level, from what we’ve seen from Van Dijk, I don’t think he’s been at that level this season,” Rooney claimed on The Overlap this week.
“I said I’m sure as captain he’d be speaking to players, taking them out for food, which he said he has done. Clearly if he’s felt he’s done that, if he had to do that, there’s something not right.
“As champions, you can’t lose four games in a row. If you lose one game, there’s questions, and if you lose four in a row, there’s something not quite right,” Rooney continued.
Intriguingly, the 40-year-old took issue with the very concept of Van Dijk defending himself.
“I think getting involved too much in the outside noise—that’s our job [as pundits], focus on your game,” Rooney sniffed. “As a younger player, I’d be looking at Van Dijk and how he reacts to this—how is it going to help them? You have to get on with your game and speak internally.”
It wasn’t a universal doubling down from Rooney. The former England captain conceded that he may have been “a bit too strong” when accusing Van Dijk of dropping his standards after penning a two-year contract extension last April. “They’ve signed new deals but I don’t think they’ve really led that team this season,” Rooney said of Van Dijk and Mohamed Salah last month.
“The one thing where I maybe went a bit too strong is where I said he’s downed tools since he signed his new contract,” Rooney admitted. “That’s a big thing to say, and maybe I was wrong on that.”
However, Rooney prefaced that climb down with the assertion: “My job now is to give my opinions, and I like to think I’m straight and honest with my opinions and how I feel.”
