Virgil van Dijk's passionate 'relegation battle' message after Liverpool win
Liverpool ended their losing streak in the Premier League with a comfortable 2-0 win against Aston Villa, and Virgil van Dijk hopes that they can finally put their crisis period behind them
Virgil van Dijk has hit out at 'ridiculous' claims that Liverpool were in a relegation battle before ending their Premier League losing streak. Van Dijk, 34, featured in Saturday's much-needed 2-0 victory over Aston Villa, ending a woeful run of four successive defeats.
Goals from Mo Salah and Ryan Gravenberch got the job done at Anfield, moving Liverpool back up to third in the table. The game also marked their first clean sheet since September 14, having leaked goals in the autumn months.
Van Dijk kept a level head, though, and has slammed the 'outside noise'. "Even in good times, you have to still keep going and don't take our foot off the gas," the Liverpool captain told TNT Sports.
"What I've noticed over the last few weeks is that there's a lot of noise that you have no control over and we have to deal with that as a team. Some of the takes are ridiculous, but you deal with it.
"Outside noise can reach certain players, but we stick together. We are not going out on the pitch to lose games or leave fans disappointed, we want to work our socks off and win games. But it's not a guarantee, the Premier League is the highest level.
READ MORE: Trent Alexander-Arnold reveals whether he'd celebrate vs Liverpool ahead of Anfield returnREAD MORE: Virgil van Dijk hits back at 'lazy' Wayne Rooney after pundit's leadership jibe"Now it's time to start working, never get too high or too low. We live in a world where everyone can have their own opinions on so many platforms and they know better. We have to stay away from that and focus on the hard work we are doing.
"Last season, we did some negative stuff but everything was all sunshine and rainbows everywhere. Now it sounds like we're going to be in a relegation battle - that's how it works in the world."
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Slot echoed Van Dijk's sentiment, arguing that Liverpool created more chances from open play in other games but never got the result to show for it. "Maybe we were a bit more on the lucky side than we've been in the last few weeks, where in my opinion we were also unlucky," Slot added.
"So, the mistake of their goalkeeper and the deflection led to two of our goals. These are the margins we are talking about. I think in other games we've created more from open play than we did today. But in football it's about results, not about the chances you create from open play."
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