March 27, (THEWILL) – Liverpool centre-back, Virgil van Dijk, has questioned Netherlands head coach Louis van Gaal’s tactics, indicating that he supports returning to the Oranje’s classic 4-3-3 formation.
Van Gaal, the former Manchester United manager, has led his team to victory in all but two of their eight games since taking over from Frank de Boer last year. However, his decision to utilise a 3-4-2-1 system against Denmark in their most recent success has sparked debate.
Van Dijk revealed after that game that he wants to play in a 4-3-3 configuration, which he is familiar to from his time at Liverpool, which is a formation that Reds’ manager Jurgen Klopp favours.
”Until today we have been training hard, with lots of tactics and meetings. There are good times but also things to improve,” he noted.
“We will analyse this. Of course, we are playing in a new system, different things are required of the players. But I think we showed a lot of good things.
“Do I like the system? Well, I’m still in favour of 4-3-3 but I’m not the national coach and the national coach has a very strong opinion about it.”
The Netherlands have already qualified for the 2022 World Cup, which will be Van Dijk’s first big competition. He was ruled out of Euro 2016 and the 2018 World Cup after the Netherlands failed to qualify, and he was also ruled out of Euro 2020 last summer due to injury.
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
