Everton forward Richarlison has lifted the lid on why he decided to pick a fight with Liverpool defender Virgil van Dijk in the Merseyside Derby. Richarlison had said that “Van Dijk is a great defender but I’ve already dribbled past him. There are better defenders”, a statement that sparked a lot of controversy at the time. And now Richarlison has shed further light on their rivalry by recounting the reasons behind another clash between the pair at Anfield in the previous season.
Richarlison said “Of course I was never going to back down. There was a disagreement during the game, which ended up in the typical heated way. I was also having the fight to waste time, and the Liverpool players did not like it. Trent Alexander-Arnold and Joe Gomez tried to get involved. But it was nothing out of the ordinary. In the whole fight, we wasted five minutes, which was good for the team. I said (to Van Dijk ) in Portuguese: ‘who do you think you are?’ They were defending their colours and we were defending ours, it was a typical derby.”
