Olivier Giroud says Liverpool defender is the toughest he has faced (Credits: Imago Images)
Arne Slot made history after winning the English Premier League in his first season as Liverpool manager. No Reds manager in the past has managed to achieve that.
Furthermore, no Liverpool manager in the past has won any silverware in their first season since the English Premier League era began.
To their defence, Slot already had a title-winning team on his hands. A managerial change is typically made during times of crisis, but this was a natural transition.
Jürgen Klopp left the managerial side of the game to become the Head of Global Football for Red Bull. This shift marked a new era at Anfield as Arne Slot was bought from Feyenoord during a transitional period.
In the Dutchman’s first season as manager, he didn’t go crazy in the summer market, signing only two players. Federico Chiesa came from Juventus and Giorgi Mamardashvili from Valencia.
Mamardashvili, however, didn’t join until the start of the current season, practically making Chiesa the sole signing of summer 2024.
Slot already had the likes of Mohamed Salah, Alisson Becker, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Virgil van Dijk on his hands, making the job easier in his first season.
Quiz: Can you name these 10 Liverpool players from the 2000s?
Olivier Giroud says Virgil van Dijk is the toughest player he has faced
Evidently, Virgil van Dijk was one of the biggest influences in Arne Slot’s first Premier League title. The Dutch defender played 37 out of the 38 EPL matches last season, missing only one.
Among them, Van Dijk managed to play every minute of those 37 matches, tallying up to 3,330 minutes last season. He helped the Reds keep 14 clean sheets with zero red cards to his name.
Virgil also made 54 interceptions and 221 clearances, being extremely reliable even at the age of 33. Henceforth, it won’t come as a surprise that French striker Olivier Giroud claimed that Virgil van Dijk is the toughest player he’s faced in his career.
“I’ll say it in turn: He’s the toughest defender I’ve ever played against. He’s a complete defender, tough, with knocks from behind… but always with respect. We’ve had some great battles with Virgil, and I’m not trying to brag… but often I managed to escape his marking, get past him, or win a duel”, the FIFA World Cup winner told CARRÉ.
Interestingly, both players share mutual respect, as Van Dijk also told Gary Neville that Olivier Giroud is the most complicated striker he’s faced.
“The most complicated striker I have played against? I still think it’s Olivier Giroud. Every time you think you’ve got the measure of him, of marking him well, but somehow he always manages to score, with his head, with his foot, with his knee”, Van Dijk told Gary Neville on The Overlap.
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