{"id":1655,"date":"2025-11-03T12:40:35","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T12:40:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/developerscohort.com\/gracious\/?p=1655"},"modified":"2025-11-03T12:41:00","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T12:41:00","slug":"epl-virgil-van-dijk-hits-back-at-rooneys-lazy-leadership-criticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/developerscohort.com\/gracious\/2025\/11\/03\/epl-virgil-van-dijk-hits-back-at-rooneys-lazy-leadership-criticism\/","title":{"rendered":"EPL: Virgil van Dijk\u00a0 hits back at Rooney\u2019s \u2018lazy\u2019 leadership criticism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"797\" height=\"568\" src=\"https:\/\/developerscohort.com\/gracious\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/image-2.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1656\" srcset=\"https:\/\/developerscohort.com\/gracious\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/image-2.png 797w, https:\/\/developerscohort.com\/gracious\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/image-2-300x214.png 300w, https:\/\/developerscohort.com\/gracious\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/image-2-768x547.png 768w, https:\/\/developerscohort.com\/gracious\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/image-2-600x428.png 600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 797px) 100vw, 797px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk has dismissed Wayne Rooney\u2019s suggestion that the Reds\u2019 recent dip in form is down to poor leadership, describing the criticism as \u201clazy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After winning the Premier League title last season in Arne Slot\u2019s debut campaign, Liverpool began the 2025\u201326 season with five straight victories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, a run of four consecutive league defeats, the latest against Brentford, has seen them fall behind in the title race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to BBC Sports on Monday,&nbsp; England and Manchester United forward Rooney said Van Dijk and team-mate Mohamed Salah had not \u201creally led that team this season\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI didn\u2019t hear him last year,\u201d Van Dijk said,&nbsp; after Liverpool arrested their slide with a win against Aston Villa on Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt doesn\u2019t hurt me. Just to come back to this particular player, obviously a legend, a big player of the game who inspired so many, I can say only positive things, but I feel that comment is, I would say, a bit of a lazy criticism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s easy to blame the other players but he knows we do it together, trying to help each and every one of us to try to get out of this. Last year, when things went well, you didn\u2019t hear that at all. It is what it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201c[Pundits] have to do that job. He has an opinion and we have to deal with it. There\u2019s no hard feelings. I don\u2019t take it personally.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve heard the reports as well about [Slot] being under pressure, but I don\u2019t think we play at a club that makes rash decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe all felt that we could work our way out of this. It\u2019s not a guarantee, but we can do it together. As long as we believe, stay humble and keep working, we can do it, and we all have that feeling,\u201d Van Dijk added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>PUNCH Online had reported that Rooney questioned the leadership of Liverpool\u2019s senior stars, Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah, saying their body language during the club\u2019s recent poor run is a \u201cbig concern.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk has dismissed Wayne Rooney\u2019s suggestion that the Reds\u2019 recent dip in form is down to poor leadership, describing the criticism as \u201clazy.\u201d After winning the Premier League title last season in Arne Slot\u2019s debut campaign, Liverpool began the 2025\u201326 season with five straight victories. However, a run of four consecutive [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1656,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-metro-plus","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/developerscohort.com\/gracious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/developerscohort.com\/gracious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/developerscohort.com\/gracious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/developerscohort.com\/gracious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/developerscohort.com\/gracious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1655"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/developerscohort.com\/gracious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1657,"href":"https:\/\/developerscohort.com\/gracious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1655\/revisions\/1657"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/developerscohort.com\/gracious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/developerscohort.com\/gracious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/developerscohort.com\/gracious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/developerscohort.com\/gracious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}