Show of Unai-ty
Virgil insists Reds will not lose power this time
VIRGIL VAN DIJK insists Liverpool have learned the lessons of last season to avoid another Premier League title slip-up.
Jurgen Klopp’s side moved eight points clear at the top and opened up a nine-point gap on champions Manchester City following Sunday’s 3-1 win.
But last season Liverpool blew a 10-point advantage over City as Pep Guardiola’s men pegged them back to claim the title.
Finding themselves back top of the pile again, the Dutchman says last term’s painful experience will help them go one better this time.
“Of course, because we took a lot of experience last year,” said the Reds defender. “Good things, but also some things we should have done better. Hopefully we can only make sure we react better and do better.
“You need to have that bit of luck as well throughout the whole season so at the moment we are very happy in the situation.
“We’ve drawn one game and won the others and hopefully we can keep it going.”
Liverpool’s only blemish after 12 games was last month’s 1-1 draw at Manchester United.
Klopp’s men have already played the other five teams in the top six as they bid to end 30 years without a league title next May.
Van Dijk added: “We are in a very good situation. That is something we can’t deny but there are so many difficult teams to beat in the league, so many difficult grounds to go to, that we all have in our minds that we shouldn’t get carried away.
“We all know the season is too long to proper celebrate that we are nine points ahead and we won’t.
“The mentality we have is we just have to carry on and keep doing better than we did against Man City.
“That is the mentality we should take into every game ahead of us.”
City’s fightback last year will give Guardiola confidence they can do it again after Liverpool earned a record 97 points – but were still runners-up.
“We did everything possible last season,” Van Dijk added.
“We shouldn’t have any regrets from last year. They were just outstanding.
“We kept pushing them and they kept pushing us and you have to respect that and I certainly do.
“This year is a new chance for more teams, for both of us, and the only focus is the game ahead of us.
“We have so many difficult periods of games with so many competitions, travel and hopefully no injuries, no illness, so anything can happen.” underlined their support. They told staff: “We are as disappointed as everyone else with both our results and performances at this stage of the season.
“We share the frustration with our fans, Unai, players and all our staff as they are not at the level we want or expect.
“Things need to improve to meet our objectives for the season and we firmly believe Unai is the right man for the job, together with the backroom team we have in place. We are all working intensively behind the scenes to turn things around and are confident we will.
“We never take our fantastic support for granted. We hope we can all stick together and get behind the team in this challenging period, as together we are stronger.”