Virgil van Dijk reveals what he said to Anthony Gordon after Newcastle winger was sent off for dangerous tackle during Liverpool's dramatic win at St James' Park

A lively start to a Premier League fixture at St James’ Park saw the home team burst out of the blocks. They dominated proceedings early on but were unable to find a breakthrough, with Gordon being asked to lead the line as a makeshift striker in the ongoing absence of want-away Alexander Isak.

England international Gordon had chances to open the scoring before Ryan Gravenberch broke the deadlock against the run of play. Newcastle’s task got considerably tougher on the stroke of half-time when Gordon lunged into a reckless challenge on Liverpool captain Van Dijk and - following a VAR review - was sent off for catching the Dutch defender on the calf with high studs.

Van Dijk told Sky Sports of his exchange with Gordon before the ex-Everton forward made his way from the field: “I said to him, if that's not a sending off then I don't understand football. It was strange the referee had to go to the monitor in my opinion. Unfortunately, these things happen in football, if he meant it or not it happened, we move on.”

Newcastle staged a stirring fightback with 10 men, levelling matters at 2-2 in the 88th minute, but 16-year-old wonderkid Rio Ngumoha had the final say in the 10th minute of stoppage time. Van Dijk added on a battling victory for the Reds: “We all know it's a difficult place to come. We know there was a lot of oil on the fire this week to get Newcastle fired up. What happened tonight was expected and, for us, the disappointing part was that we conceded two set pieces. That shouldn't happen but overall great three points, move on and focus on the next one.”

Defending champions Liverpool have taken maximum points from their opening two games in 2025-26. They will enter the first international break of the new season on the back of a testing clash with Arsenal at Anfield on Sunday.