{"id":33700,"date":"2026-05-04T15:34:58","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T13:34:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=33700"},"modified":"2026-05-05T07:35:54","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T05:35:54","slug":"liverpools-van-dijk-rejects-criticism-of-training-regime-after-man-united-defeat","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/liverpools-van-dijk-rejects-criticism-of-training-regime-after-man-united-defeat\/","title":{"rendered":"Liverpool&#8217;s Van Dijk rejects criticism of training regime after Man United defeat"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk has pushed back against criticism of their training regime following Sunday&#8217;s 3-2 Premier League defeat at Manchester United, \u200bamid scrutiny on social media over the players&#8217; time off.<\/div>\n<div>Arne \u200cSlot&#8217;s side suffered their 18th defeat in all competitions this season, leaving champions Liverpool fourth in the table on 58 points with three matches remaining despite spending \u200baround 446 million Pounds ($603.84 million) to improve the squad.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Van Dijk \u200bwas asked about online claims that Liverpool&#8217;s training schedule has \u2060been light, including suggestions players were on holiday last week.<\/div>\n<div>&#8220;I&#8217;m not \u200bsure it&#8217;s a holiday. It&#8217;s a city trip,&#8221; Van Dijk told reporters. &#8220;If \u200byou have one day off and you don&#8217;t have many days off &#8211; people decide what they want to do with their families. We are not kids. Everyone is \u200ban adult.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;I wish we had a couple more days off at \u200btimes because I think it works both ways. You see Pep Guardiola giving Manchester \u200cCity \u2060three days off in the last weeks in a row and they are doing pretty well. It is about finding the right balance.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;I can understand if people think we are not training, and when results are \u200bnot there it \u200bcould be seen \u2060as a reason why we are not getting results.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div>Liverpool will finish the season without silverware after exiting the \u200bFA Cup and suffering a heavy defeat by Paris St \u200bGermain \u2060in the Champions League quarter-finals.<\/div>\n<div>They host ninth-placed Chelsea<\/div>\n<div>&#8220;I want this to be solved,&#8221; Van Dijk added. &#8220;I want us to experience what I have had over \u2060my \u200btime here. I want us to be successful. We have to realise that next season, this season cannot be repeated. It is unacceptable.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":23499,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-33700","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Arne \u200cSlot's side suffered their 18th defeat in all competitions this season.","published_date":"","news_description":"Arne \u200cSlot's side suffered their 18th defeat in all competitions this season.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/33700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/33700\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33721,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/33700\/revisions\/33721"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=33700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}