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Wayne Rooney has expressed his worries over Virgil van Dijk's remarks about his team following Liverpool's 3-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest.
Arne Slot's squad suffered their sixth league defeat of the season, already two more than their total defeats in their Premier League title-winning campaign last year. Despite securing victories against Aston Villa and Real Madrid earlier this month, keeping clean sheets in both matches, the Reds have now fallen to consecutive losses.
Liverpool has only managed to win three out of its last 11 games in all competitions and currently sits 11th in the league table. After the match, club captain Van Dijk confessed that his team "were just not good", before outlining a number of problems Liverpool are presently dealing with - a situation that concerns Rooney.
Speaking about Forest capitalizing on Liverpool's weaknesses, Rooney told Match of the Day: "Yeah, they did, and I think that's a concern when your captain is speaking like that about the players lacking fight and not winning second balls and winning the challenges.", reports the Liverpool Echo.
"But if we look here at how Nottingham Forest prepared themselves against Liverpool... they allowed Liverpool to come onto them early on and they were sucking Liverpool into traps all afternoon."
Rooney's concern comes after the former Manchester United and Everton star had a much-publicised feud with Van Dijk over comments he made about the Liverpool captain's start to the season.
Rooney had questioned both Van Dijk and Mohamed Salah's leadership after they had signed new contracts at Anfield, leading to an awkward interview live on television when the former fired back at him after the Reds' win over Real Madrid.
Liverpool dominated most of the game against Forest on Saturday. Slot's team had 74 per cent possession and managed 21 shots compared to Forest's 15.
The Reds also completed over 400 more passes than their opponents.
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However, crucially for Sean Dyche's side, their shots found the back of the net. If Arsenal triumph over Tottenham later, Liverpool will find itself 11 points adrift of the league leader.
The key thing for Slot is that there is still ample time for his side to regain form. The Liverpool head coach will be pinning his hopes on new signings like Alexander Isak finding their stride soon.
Manchester City demonstrated that even the top clubs are not invincible, having suffered a defeat at the hands of a struggling Newcastle United team. If Liverpool is to regroup and start winning again, it'll also need Arsenal and City to begin faltering more frequently.
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