Wayne Rooney was no doubt about which “lazy” Liverpool -star was to blame for their exit from Champions League: Virgil van Dijk.
The Reds crashed from Europe on Wednesday through the hands of Paris Saint-Germain. After winning the 1-0 of the first leg in the French capital, the side of Arne Slot slid out to beat in Anfield when Ousmane Dembele scored the winner.
Neither of the parties was able to get to the score sheet during the rest of the game and extra time, with penalties that decide the collision. Darwin Nunez and Curtis Jones could not convert both.
But Rooney believes that Liverpool's exit extends to the goal of Dembele and suggested that Van Dijk could have done much more to prevent this. Speaking on Amazon Prime Video, the Manchester United Icon said: “This goal from the Liverpool perspective is wrong in so many ways.
“They try to press the ball and Van Dijk becomes lazy. If you keep an eye on Van Dijk, he runs and leaves a huge opening on Dembele. All he has to do has come over and covering Dembele because there is no other pass for Paris to get out and not.
“Dembele gets it and he has a lot of space, takes the ball wide and then Konate does not switch on and then he responds. Dembele makes a good run and gets a tick. “
Van Dijk spoke after the defeat of Liverpool and refused to consider their exit, instead he insisted on his teammates to focus on the Carabao Cup final of this weekend against Newcastle. He said: “It's part of football.
“I told the boys 'that you can be disappointed because we are out of competition, but Chin Up'. Now we are getting ready for the next challenge at the weekend, which is a great one.
“I think we were pretty good today, and you want to go as far as possible, but we knew that if we pulled PSG, it would be very difficult. We saw in Paris when we struggled, but we won, and today we saw a very good Liverpool side, but we are out of the competition.
“Today from the first second and then extra time, when fatigue enters into force for both parties, it becomes more open, but especially regular time, we have shown a very good game. We have been able to talk about the game for centuries, but we are out of the competition, that is reality.”
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