Virgil van Dijk had a clear message for his Liverpool teammates after their fourth defeat on the spin on Sunday.
The Reds’ woes continued at the weekend as they lost at home to Manchester United, the Red Devils’ first win at Anfield in almost 10 years, and the concession of two more goals has led Jamie Carragher to dismiss their title credentials unless they can tighten up defensively.
The captain wasn’t immune from external criticism, being called out by Craig Burley for his repeated ‘blaming’ of Milos Kerkez at certain moments in the match against Ruben Amorim’s side.
What did Van Dijk tell his teammates on Sunday?
In an article for Mail Sport, Lewis Steele shared insights from the Liverpool dressing room after Sunday’s chastening defeat, with Van Dijk preaching a message of defiance to his teammates amid their current slump.
The reporter outlined: “‘You cannot hide, you have to keep going,’ was the gist of what captain Virgil van Dijk told the squad at full-time, urging them to end this sobering October and move on, also telling the room to forget about it and focus only on the next game.”
Liverpool don’t have time to feel sorry for themselves
If there is one silver lining from what happened at the weekend, it’s that the Reds have scarcely any time to feel sorry for themselves, with the focus immediately switching to a Champions League assignment away to Eintracht Frankfurt on Wednesday night.
The debrief from Sunday will already have been held, and Arne Slot will have pinpointed lessons that Liverpool must take from the loss to Man United, but the only thing which should now be on the players’ minds is a determination to put things right in Germany tomorrow.
Van Dijk has been through difficult periods at Anfield before – most of the 2022/23 season comes to mind (he was injured for almost all of the similarly choppy 2020/21 campaign) – so he’ll be aware that the only solution for his team is to soldier on and the turning point will eventually come.
At times like this, the mantra of ‘park it and move on’ is easier said and done – subconscious doubts creep in when things aren’t going well, and actions which should come naturally feel forced and clunky – but the Reds mustn’t forget that they have the quality to get out of this rut.
Winston Churchill famously once said, ‘If you’re going through hell, keep going’. Liverpool are having to navigate a difficult period right now, but they’ve already been through hell after the tragic loss of Diogo Jota in July and kept going by getting back onto the pitch and (let’s not forget) winning seven games in a row before the current losing streak.
One victory is all it might take to turn the corner and get belief flowing through our veins again, with a string of positive results to follow!