Virgil van Dijk has suggested that Manchester City’s reception at Anfield on Sunday was a sign of things to come, and that the club’s players will have to get used to it. The Liverpool captain said the chants directed at City from the home crowd were impossible for anyone on the pitch to miss.
The match was City’s first since they were found guilty of almost all the charges they faced in relation to breaking the Premier League’s financial rules between 2009 and 2018. An independent commission declared that City had overstated their income by £830.69m and would have been in breach of spending regulations in the Premier League and Europe had they provided a true picture of their finances. The Anfield crowd denounced City as cheats in a variety of chants through the game.
“I think everyone could hear it,” Van Dijk said. “Everyone can share their feelings and I don’t think Anfield will be the only place where it will be the case because fans will have their feelings. But for players I don’t think it is a good idea at this moment in time [to share their feelings].”
City were unaffected by the hostility on the scoreboard, running out 3-0 winners after the game turned on the 62nd-minute dismissal of the Liverpool midfielder Ryan Gravenberch. Their appeal hearing must be completed before Christmas, with a verdict then communicated within 30 days, and the club continue to deny wrongdoing. Van Dijk made clear he would wait before offering his own view of the case. “It’s still a little bit ongoing so I don’t think it’s smart for me to comment on it right now,” he said. “But when the [appeal] verdict comes out I will definitely have my opinion and I will probably share it.”
Asked whether City beating Liverpool to titles during the period of their transgressions — most significantly the 2013-14 Premier League, which City won with 86 points to Liverpool’s 84 — changed how he felt about those battles, Van Dijk said it did not. “No,” he said. “Because I really enjoyed our rivalry and it was a great rivalry on the pitch. What happened off the pitch is for others to find a conclusion on and then let’s see.”
Van Dijk was unhappy with the Gravenberch sending-off, complaining that his teammate’s first yellow card, for a foul on Elliot Anderson, was soft. Liverpool also highlighted what they felt was an inconsistency after their player Ronald Araújo was booked early on for waving an imaginary card and demanding that Marc Guéhi be booked for diving. When Gravenberch fouled the City substitute Jérémy Doku for his second yellow, Erling Haaland held up his right hand and appeared to suggest the offence merited a booking, while Rúben Dias and Guéhi ran towards the referee, Chris Kavanagh, with Guéhi appearing to point towards the tunnel. Kavanagh took no action against the City players.
“Was the red card the right decision? That’s for others [to decide],” Van Dijk said. “I don’t even know how the first yellow card [for Gravenberch] was. But after the first minute when Araújo got a yellow card for asking for a yellow card, there were so many other players from the other team asking for a red card. That’s just that. We can’t use it as an excuse. We went down to 10 men and conceded pretty quickly after that and then it’s a very tough one.”