1 week ago
8
Virgil van Dijk admitted that it was a "disappointing night" for Liverpool as the Reds were beaten 3-2 by Brentford in London.
Liverpool went into the game aiming to end a run of three successive Premier League defeats, but that streak now stands at four after the loss at the Gtech Community Stadium. Van Dijk admitted that Liverpool's performance fell short of the level required to beat a team like Brentford. "Disappointed about losing here," he said.
"We know what their strengths were and what they were going to try to do. We needed to be spot on with the quality they had. It was a disappointing night overall for us. Tough to take but it's the reality and we need to keep going."
Five of Liverpool's last six games in all competitions have taken place away from Anfield, and the team returns to home territory in midweek as Crystal Palace visits Merseyside in the Carabao Cup.
Van Dijk has called on the Reds to begin to turn their season around with a win against the Selhurst Park club — a team which has got the better of Liverpool twice already this season.
"It's the reality that we lost today," Van Dijk said. "We have the next game on Wednesday against an opponent [Crystal Palace] who already made our life difficult this season.
"We have to turn our mindset pretty quickly to be ready for that.
"They will come to Anfield to hurt us even more, but this is a tough one to take. We can't deny that. It's not an easy moment.
"We were trying to build on that performance against Frankfurt and this was not a nice evening to have."
Liverpool has kept just two clean sheets in 14 games in all competitions since the start of the season, and Van Dijk was at a loss to explain why the team has been so defensively leaky.
"It's difficult to say," Van Dijk said. "The fact we didn't keep a clean sheet for nine games! It's easy to blame a particular person, the backline or set-pieces.
"But it's a collective thing in the end. Everyone has to look in the mirror, including myself. I am sure we will get out of this.
"But we won't do it just by talking about it. We will try to improve. We need each other, we ned the support. We need the people who were celebrating with us last year to be with us now even more.
"We will get out of this because we have the quality offensively and defensively."
English (US) ·