{"id":9719,"date":"2023-12-07T07:51:56","date_gmt":"2023-12-07T07:51:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=9719"},"modified":"2023-12-07T07:51:56","modified_gmt":"2023-12-07T07:51:56","slug":"van-dijk-volley-sets-up-liverpools-2-0-win-over-sheffield-united","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2023\/12\/07\/van-dijk-volley-sets-up-liverpools-2-0-win-over-sheffield-united\/","title":{"rendered":"Van Dijk volley sets up Liverpool’s 2-0 win over Sheffield United"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Virgil van Dijk and Dominik Szoboszlai goals ensured Liverpool ruined Chris Wilder\u2019s Sheffield United homecoming with a 2-0 victory at Bramall Lane.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Dutch centre-backfired home from a first-half corner and Szoboszlai added a second at the death to give the Reds all three points in South Yorkshire to extend their Premier League unbeaten run to eight games.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Jurgen Klopp\u2019s men closed the gap on league leaders Arsenal to just two points.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Wilder was condemned to defeat in his first game back as Blades manager, two-and-a-half years after he left in March 2021, following Tuesday\u2019s sacking of Paul Heckingbottom.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This was United\u2019s 12th defeat from 15 games and although they are only four points behind Luton, they look to have a mountain to climb.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The 56-year-old was given a warm welcome before the game and his side started with enthusiasm, creating two openings in the first 20 minutes.<\/p>\n

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Cameron Archer led a lightning quick counter-attack and played in James McAtee, who really should have done better than to just poke straight at Caoimhin Kelleher from eight yards out.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It was Archer who had the next chance as he was given space to run in on goal until Van Dijk came across and blocked his shot at the vital moment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Liverpool were far from their fluent best but began to take control and took the lead in the 37th minute.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Van Dijk was left completely free from Trent Alexander-Arnold\u2019s corner and he stroked home from 12 yards for his first goal of the season.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The visitors continued to control the game and Blades goalkeeper Wes Foderingham had to be alert to tip Alexis Mac Allister\u2019s dipping shot over the crossbar before the break.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Foderingham made an even better save 10 minutes into the second half as he showed brilliant reactions to palm over Mohamed Salah\u2019s volley from another Alexander-Arnold corner.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Virgil van Dijk and Dominik Szoboszlai goals ensured Liverpool ruined Chris Wilder\u2019s Sheffield United homecoming with a 2-0 victory at Bramall Lane. The Dutch centre-backfired home from a first-half corner and Szoboszlai added a second at the death to give the Reds all three points in South Yorkshire to extend their Premier League unbeaten run […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":9721,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[330,433],"class_list":["post-9719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-liverpool","tag-van-dijk"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9719"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9722,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9719\/revisions\/9722"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}