London (Reuters)
Liverpool’s Virgil van Dijk has admitted low confidence in his team, after they fell to 10th place in the Premier League with a 3-2 defeat to Arsenal, but the Dutch defender stressed that he believed in success in the recovery.
Arsenal winger Bukayo Saka scored two goals, one of them from a penalty kick near the end, to suffer Liverpool’s second loss of the season and help Arsenal return to the top at the expense of defending champion Manchester City.
Liverpool have 10 points from eight games and are going through their worst start to the season since coach Jurgen Klopp was appointed seven years ago.
Van Dijk said the decline in confidence had taken its toll in recent games. “We are all human and sometimes you need to have confidence in certain moments… If your confidence is not that high, it doesn’t help in certain situations,” Van Dijk said.
“Every person, whatever their job, whatever the situation, needs a little confidence to perform at the highest level. If we don’t win like we used to, confidence drops a lot, but we know we can recover.”
“We know we have to work and we have to work hard. This is the only thing that can be done and this is the only way forward.”
Klopp’s team will host Rangers in the Champions League on Wednesday, before hosting Manchester City in the league on Sunday.
“The only thing we can do is try to win the next game,” Van Dijk said. “We know that in the league it will be a very difficult match but first we have to recover and look at … what we can do better because there will be a lot of moments that we can all do.” We do it better.”
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