Virgil van Dijk has admitted that his Liverpool team conceded a goal away against Man City. (Image: Getty)
Virgil van Dijk consistently steps forward and faces the music. He spoke up even after the game when his own performance fell short of expectations. By his own admission, he repeats the same message too often: apologizing for Liverpool’s substandard performance. However, immediately after losing to Manchester City in the FA Cup, things looked a little different.
The reality that the team he captained had performed so well for more than 30 minutes before collapsing made this turnaround particularly painful. It is because he chooses his words carefully that certain statements ring like a warning bell. “We obviously came out of the dressing room with the right intentions to score and make it 2-1 and change the game,” Van Dijk said of the start of the second half, with Liverpool starting two goals behind.
“But the opposite happened and it’s obviously very difficult to come back from 3-0 here. But we shouldn’t give up. At some point that may have happened.”
It was a revealing scene for witnesses as Arne Slott was seen applauding the handful of people who remained in the 8,000-capacity section of the away supporters’ stand. And Van Dijk completely understood why the Liverpool faithful had deserted the team.
He said: “The fans were there to support us and I can only apologize to them for what we showed them. We let ourselves and the coach down, but today we let the fans down. It may not have been until the penalty kick, but the way we played, especially in the second half, must have hurt everyone. It definitely hurt.”
“This season, we have experienced many situations where we had hopes but were unable to improve our performance. Today’s second half was tough because we didn’t match our intensity and couldn’t win. Losing 4-0 in that situation is tough.”
Liverpool’s away end was nearly deserted at full time. (Image: Getty)
Of course, Liverpool’s campaign is still alive and well. After all, they are only four games away from the Champions League final.
A mouth-watering quarter-final clash with Paris Saint-Germain begins now. But Van Dijk is acutely aware that a crushing defeat at the hands of City is the worst way to prepare.
“We’re trying to figure out how we can turn things around, but we’ve been in this situation for almost 75 percent of the season. We’re doing well, but we can’t build on certain things and we end up falling back into games where we lose on intensity and we lose on how hard we want to play.”
“This is a difficult thing to accept and everyone has to look at themselves. I’m speaking for myself, but it’s mentally tough to accept this at the moment.”
But Van Dijk, Slott and Liverpool must regroup for the first leg of the Champions League quarter-finals in Paris, and it’s clear it won’t be easy. Van Dijk continued: “I have to say it’s very tough mentally at the moment. Mentally it’s been a very tough season overall.”
“As a matter of fact, PSG are waiting for us now. We saw them a little bit yesterday (Friday) and it will be another very tough game.
“But we have a responsibility not only to ourselves, but especially to the fans. If we want to achieve something this season, we have to try to do something special in the next three games.”
