There's a panegyric to the big man in The Times today - highlights below:
There is a trend in the build-up to televised matches for the players to be shown leaving the team bus, stepping down towards the players’ entrance. This is a rather dull event and so their disembarkation is done in slow motion. It is a form of elevation, homage. These men do not climb off the coach like you or I would jump from the 209 to Hammersmith, they do so in a blaze of glory and recognition. They arrive and we are grateful to see them do so in good time and in one piece.
The cameras were poised for one player in particular. [...]
Van Dijk was determined to join Klopp and, at £75 million, joined an elite band of players who have not once seemed emotionally troubled by how much they cost. As he floated down from the bus last night he delivered an ironic, knowing half-smile, which, in slow motion, looked both intimidating and professorial. [...]
He is a man mountain and so Southampton took the decision to bypass him. This reaped swift reward as Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg’s header dinked over the Dutchman’s head to set up the first goal. The next time Hojbjerg tried something similar, the Southampton captain overdid the arc of his avoidance and the ball dipped over the head of Shane Long as well as that of Van Dijk. But the home team believed they were in with a chance if they could keep on circumnavigating the imperious centre back. It was similar to a cab driver insisting on avoiding the M25 even if it added 55 miles to the journey.
Van Dijk wore the armband at St Mary’s. That he would be the automatic captain in the absence of Jordan Henderson and James Milner, the captain and vice-captain respectively who started on the bench, was voted on by the players last October and the defender possesses a captain’s aura. He had to clear the ball in a hurry right in front of his goalkeeper Alisson in the first half and although it smacked of the set-up for an own goal, his composure was so vivid that a mishap did not feel imminent.
Slow-motion camerawork suits Van Dijk because he never looks rushed. He glides where others scurry, he holds out his arms in messianic fashion where others flap in despair. This authority was essential in those periods where his team exhibited the jitters. Passes were misplaced and the positioning was, from Liverpool’s standpoint, naive, and had their captain begun yelling it may all have imploded. He expressed annoyance for the mistakes being made without it spilling into castigation. These wobbles in the frenetic climax to the season are only to be expected, said his body language. Class will win out in the end, said the glint in his eyes.
This was not his most assured performance and his distribution was decidedly unexceptional but his team-mates have reached the juncture where they require the personification of destiny on the pitch alongside them. Van Dijk came to Liverpool because he knew that he could win silverware and the fact he still believes that as the nerves fray while Manchester City barely break sweat is what keeps the dream of a first league title since 1990 alive.
