Virgil van Dijk has admitted Liverpool’s 1-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest came as a “reality check”.
The Reds had enjoyed a perfect start to life under new manager Arne Slot but came crashing down to Earth after the international break as Callum Hudson-Odoi inflicted the first defeat of the Dutchman’s new era.
A thoroughly unimpressed Van Dijk warned his teammates that such a lacklustre performance cannot be replicated going forwards.
“First of all, it was a very disappointing day,” Van Dijk reflected. “The result, and also most of the performance was too rushed and we lost too many second balls.
“We know how direct they are, so playing against a big striker you can sometimes lose a challenge and you have to be ready for the second ball and every time there was a second ball they were on the right side of it.
“They got momentum in terms of winning the right challenges and they did the job very well and in terms of ourselves we weren’t good enough. That’s the disappointing point of it.
“It’s difficult for me to say [if the international break didn’t help]. Everyone is coming back from different places and playing a different way but still I think even today when we were not at our best we created chances and it should have gone better.
“But it is a performance we are definitely not happy with, we expect a lot better from ourselves and losing at home is something that can’t happen. We have to turn it around pretty quickly and that will be the focus.
“We still tried but I think we were too rushed, we put the ball in the box a bit too quick or overplayed it and then you don’t get the momentum you want to get.
“Overall it was a disappointing afternoon, something we didn’t want to happen but we have to turn this around and make this a sort of reality check to be better for the rest of the season because if you want to achieve things this season the contrast between the games we played is too big.”
Liverpool will now seek to respond when they begin their Champions League campaign against AC Milan on Tuesday.
“Obviously everyone is disappointed, like we all should be, but we also remind ourselves that Tuesday is another big game,” Van Dijk stressed.
“If you want to dwell on things it is only going to backfire on yourself. We all should be disappointed but in a couple of hours we will already be thinking about recovery and being ready for Tuesday. That’s how we live our lives and that is what we have to do but the disappointment is still there.”
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