Van Dijk debut a ‘fairytale’, says Klopp

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp hailed Virgil van Dijk for a « fairytale » debut after the defender scored the winner in a 2-1 FA Cup victory over Everton Friday.

Van Dijk, signed for a reported £75million in January, headed in a dramatic 84th-minute winner on debut at Anfield.

Klopp lauded the Netherlands world, revealing he very top made up our minds to hand Van Dijk his debut on game day.

« Nice one [Van Dijk’s debut]. A fairytale in a worldwide with now not a host of fairytales anymore, so I concentrate on something admire that is comparatively special, » he urged a news convention.

« It became a elaborate dedication to build. To be a hundred per cent very top, the first scheme became now not to initiating him but then Dejan [Lovren] and Raggy [Ragnar Klavan] performed a host of video games in the outdated few weeks, so I changed my mind this morning [Friday]. And it helped.

« They [had] minute muscle complications, but might perhaps seemingly even have performed with barely of higher effort than in style.

« I made the dedication this morning that Virgil will initiating – and clearly it became an even recommendation in the tip attributable to your entire game became magnificent. »

James Milner’s first-half of penalty became cancelled out by Gylfi Sigurdsson before Van Dijk headed in an Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain corner.

No topic Van Dijk’s huge designate, Klopp acknowledged the 26-three hundred and sixty five days-oldschool had exceeded his expectations.

« He became powerful higher than I assumed, to be very top, attributable to it is advanced, it is continuously advanced, » he acknowledged.

« I acknowledged before the sport that my expectations are easy to achieve attributable to I do know how magnificent he is and so I very top desire him to designate that.

« I quiet know that he’s a human being and things can happen that he can designate it tonight, things admire this happen.

« But we all know that expectation can lead to stress and then you search for barely of bit different than you search for on the total, and he obviously might perhaps seemingly also stand the stress. »