Virgil van Dijk is likely to be out for the season after suffering a knee injury in Everton 2-2 Liverpool.The Dutchman sustained the injury in just the sixth minute in the Merseyside derby.Van Dijk found himself in the box but he was brought down in a horrendous challenge by Everton goalkeeper, Jordan Pickford.He was not awarded a penalty because he was fractionally offside.The Liverpool defender tried to carry on but he could not continue. He was subsequently replaced by Joe Gomez.
Van Dijk went to hospital in the aftermath of the game and he was later pictured in crutches.
He visited a specialist earlier today. Liverpool have now confirmed he has torn his ACL (anterior cruciate ligament).
He now requires surgery and will miss a lengthy period of time. It takes athletes on average 8-12 months to recover from the injury he sustained.
Liverpool have refused to rule him out for the season as a lot depends on how both the surgery and his rehabilitation goes.
The details of Van Dijk's surgery have yet to be arranged, but he faces an uphill battle if he wants to return to action before the campaign is over.
Liverpool will now have to make do with limited centre-back options for some time.
Joe Gomez and Joel Matip will both be first choice in Van Dijk's absence.
Fabinho has shown he can also fill in if need be, while youngsters Nat Phillips, Sepp van den Berg and Rhys Williams are also options for Jurgen Klopp.
Andy Robertson spoke about the impact of potentially losing Van Dijk immediately after the Merseyside derby on Saturday.
"It doesn’t look good for Virg and I hope he comes back as quickly as I can, and hopefully the scan maybe doesn’t show what the lads think," he said, per the Liverpool Echo.
"Losing a player like him is always tough, but from an incident like that, it makes it a wee bit tougher.
“Look, that’s part of football unfortunately. It’s part of derbies, it’s part of life. We’ll all deal with it, we’ll all support Virg for however long he’s out – hopefully not long, like I said."