Virgil van Dijk has spoken about being on the receiving end of a poor challenge from his international teammate Xavi Simons during Liverpool’s 2-1 win against Tottenham.
Simons was one of two Tottenham players to be sent off on Saturday as the Lilywhites fell to yet another home defeat in the Premier League.
The Dutchman was initially shown a yellow for a poor challenge on Van Dijk, but it was upgraded to a red after the VAR asked the referee to re-watch the incident on the touchline monitor.
Xavi apologised to his Tottenham teammates and his fans for letting them down, and now the Liverpool centre-back has reacted to the incident.
Virgil van Dijk claims Xavi Simons deserved his first Tottenham red card
Thomas Frank believes that the red card decision against Xavi was extremely harsh, but Van Dijk disagrees.
The Liverpool centre-back revealed that he and his Netherlands international teammate spoke about the incident after full-time, and conceded that the Tottenham man did not intend to hurt him.
When asked about Xavi’s challenge, Van Dijk said (via Liverpool Echo): “I don’t think there was any intention to hurt me but obviously, he hurt me, and then the referee and the VAR made the decision to send him off. Yeah I spoke to him [after the game]. It’s a chat that no one needs to know.”
Red card offences have changed in the VAR era
Although the rules of what constitutes a red card may have remained the same, the fact that referees are watching the incident in slow motion means that more of these tackles are now likely to lead to red cards.
Xavi’s tackle was never going to constitute a sending off in real-time, as there was hardly any force behind it.
However, slowing it down makes the tackle look much worse, and this has been pointed out by The Athletic’s Jack-Pitt Brooke, who suggested that the laws were not written to withstand modern technological scrutiny.