Liverpool have made an excellent start in both the Premier League and the Champions League, winning their first six matches of the season, and Virgil van Dijk believes the time has come to regard the club as a threat in all competitions.
“This is a great time to be a Liverpool player,” the Netherlands centre-half said after the victory against Paris Saint-Germain. “Everyone is excited, everyone wants to be a part of it and though we know the season is very long, with four competitions to play in, we want to win everything. That is basically our mindset.
“You need to have ambitions, and with the size of this club and its history we are going to try to win everything. It is going to be hard, and there will be days when we have downs, but we have shown we can react to tough situations and at the moment I am not worried about anything. There is a lot of belief in this team, in the whole squad in fact. Everyone is there for each other.”
PSG were perhaps not the greatest advertisement for £750m of Qatari investment at Anfield, though Liverpool had to start the game without Roberto Firmino and before the Brazilian came on at the end to score the winner Daniel Sturridge had stepped into the attack to supply the first goal with a confident finish. “We have good players who are not always in the team,” Van Dijk said. “Studge came in and did not just score a very important goal, he worked hard for the team. That’s the vital thing. When one player is out another needs to be there, and at the moment that is what’s happening.”
Liverpool will meet tougher opponents this season, especially in Europe, but Van Dijk is confident that they are once again capable of taking on and beating the very top teams. “We were not in the Champions League final last season for no reason,” he said. “We already deserve respect for what we did but in football you have to keep proving yourself because it always starts again. The season has only just started and we can’t take anything for granted and get ahead of ourselves.
“We have to keep working hard and stay humble. We have a tough game on Saturday with Southampton, then Chelsea and Manchester City coming up. When games come along every three days you have to be properly prepared, it’s the only way forward. That and the right mindset. I want to create memories here, I want to win things with this team, and to do that we have to have belief in our ability to beat the best teams.
“If you are going to be out on the pitch and you don’t believe that, then you had better stay at home.”
