Virgil Van Dijk Available to Face Barcelona

Social media is a terrific thing. It allows us to connect with people instantaneously despite being halfway around the globe. It helps us to find solidarity in interests we hold dear. It’s a big part of what connects me to this wonderful community of Liverpool fans, both specifically at TLO and in terms of the broader LFC fanbase.

But social media for football can also bring unnecessary anxiety. Case in point, earlier today, reporters noticed that Virgil Van Dijk was missing from the training sessions. Fans then used photos from the session to confirm this.

Already reeling from the devastating news that the team would be without both Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino ahead of Tuesday’s Championship League clash at Anfield against Barcelona, fans, understandably, were thrown into a deep spin of chaos and despair. I personally felt like I had suddenly turned into the living embodiment of Ben Affleck at those Batman vs Superman press interviews. It was a brutally depressing moment.

Thankfully, social media helped to correct that information post haste as a tweet from David Maddock sought to throw water on the sense desire to burn everything down among the Liverpool contingent.

It seems that the reason VVD had not been pictured during the training sessions is because he was doing a sort of specialized training on his own. Also doing a similar program was Alexander Oxlade-Chamberlain. So, the two LFC players weren’t around for training photos because they were doing their own training. Something like that. Either way, it’s good news!

Headed into tomorrow, the club will have a giant mountain to climb without their two stars in attack. Thankfully, they don’t have to worry about losing their anchor in defense and viable candidate for the club’s own Player of the Year. Good news indeed.