Virgil's been very important at defensive and attacking set pieces and headed clearances from attempted long balls, especially in Matip's absence, i'm gutted for Virgil and hope he makes the best possible recovery, not rushing any of it, but taking all the best advice and working incredibly hard doing the right things when it is the right time to do them.
Here's the thing though, Virgil had very little defending to do at all last season aside from those things mentioned, virtually every side we played set up to stop us and try to create a transition to attack our right side, in the 20 odd game run when Fab was out we had numerous games in which the press and counter press from our forwards, midfield and full back was so good we restricted the opposition to only 1 or 2 chances, no chances at all in 2 or 3 games and most sides never got a look at our defence or were allowed to work transitions to get at our CBs and engage them into being required to do 'real defending'
Yes it's a blow, but we have Matip fit who's very strong in the air and dominant and is actually better than Virgil at stepping forward into midfield to make crucial tackles when our press would otherwise be broken, so we're really 'as you were', one dominant commanding CB the other 2 to choose from weaker.
Through the development and evolution of the team Virgil was far more vital to our aspirations in his first season and a half and far far more frequently required to show his class, all his greatests strengths and attributes that make him a top class CB than he had to last season
I though his couple of uncharacteristic errors last season were largely the result of the rest of the team doing their jobs so damned well that he'd spent the vast majority of most games not having any real defending to do
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