Van Dijk heaps praise on Liverpool defender calling him the best in the world

Joe Gomez, a teammate at Liverpool, is regarded by Virgil van Dijk as one of the top English center-backs in the game.

Gomez only made 21 appearances for the Reds last season because, in Jurgen Klopp’s eyes, Joel Matip and Ibrahima Konate were more important players. But by signing a new five-year contract earlier this month, he pledged his long-term future to the team, and Van Dijk has backed him to deliver.

We discussed it before he signed the contract, and I’m simply glad he’s staying at the club and living with me. Additionally, I’m glad that he signed with the team, Van Dijk said on the team website.

“He is, in my opinion, [one of] if not the best English center-back around. Obviously, we’ve both been very unlucky with the injuries we had. Obviously, his time will come again and hopefully this season he can show that.”

Jurgen Klopp has increased the intensity of Liverpool’s pre-season training as he builds up for the start of the 2022/23 season.

Liverpool is in Austria on a training camp and will face Austrian champions Red Bull Salzburg on Wednesday evening before playing rivals Manchester City in Saturday’s Community Shield.

“The training sessions were intense to a specific point, that we could get fitter and fitter,” Klopp told the Reds website. “The running sessions were extremely hard but we took care of them and now let’s see how we can grow in this season.

“For City, it’s not really different, they came back from America probably yesterday or something like that. So it will be a tough one.”

Jurgen Klopp’s assistant manager, Pep Lijnders, has explained how the Liverpool manager ended up inside a bar that has been named after him during a stag do for coach Vitor Matos back in April.

“Jürgen left the bus to enter Jürgen’s Bar when we stopped next to it in front of a red traffic light. All of the people inside thought he was a doppelganger, which made the moment of realization that this was actually Jürgen Klopp so funny,” he writes in ‘ Pep Lijnders Intensity: Inside Liverpool FC – Our Identity’.