Virgil van Dijk stands tall – but 6 players score below 6/10, including Mo Salah!

Mohamed Salah had a poor night in Liverpool’s lethargic 1-0 defeat away to Tottenham, but Virgil van Dijk was a rock yet again.

The Reds were beaten in the first leg of their Carabao Cup semi-final clash on Wednesday evening in controversial circumstances.

After a dour opening 45 minutes, Lucas Bergvall fired home the winning goal, but he should have been sent off moments before for a second yellow card offence.

Liverpool now have work to do in the second leg next month, with the Reds experiencing a tricky few days across two competitions.

Here we compare our player ratings with those of the Liverpool Echo, GOAL, FotMob and TIA’s readers.

Not many Reds players could hold their head high after the game, but Van Dijk (7.5) was typically excellent.

The Liverpool captain led by example all evening, winning five of his six aerial duels, the most of any player on the pitch, as per FotMob.

This Is Anfield‘s Joanna Durkan described Van Dijk as the “calm presence Liverpool needed,” adding that he was “everywhere he needed to be, and more.”

Ian Doyle of the Echo said it was an “impressive” performance by the 33-year-old, who continues to stand out as one of the players of the season.

Alexis Mac Allister (6.7) was Liverpool’s second-best performer on the night, putting in a solid shift in midfield.

GOAL’s Sean Walsh felt that the Argentine was the “disruptor to Tottenham‘s build-up,” outperforming Ryan Gravenberch (6.2) in the process.

Wataru Endo (6.6) was in third place, doing well at centre-back after replacing Jarell Quansah (5.1), who Slot later explained was not injured.

Durkan paid him a lot of praise, saying the “best compliment you could give him was that you didn’t even question his presence” in an auxiliary role.

In what was a huge surprise, it was Salah (4.9) who got the lowest score, with Liverpool’s top scorer anonymous for large periods.

Next up for the Reds is the visit of Accrington Stanley in the FA Cup third round in an early Saturday start, where we can expect to see a lot more changes from Slot.