Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk issued a stark call for collective responsibility after the Reds fell 3\u20132 away to Brentford, a result that extended their league losing run to four matches. Van Dijk was one of several players who struggled during the game, with the towering centre back unable to contain Igor Thiago\u2019s physical game and conceding a second\u2011half penalty which the Brazilian converted.<\/p>\n
Speaking to TNT Sports after the match, Van Dijk was blunt. \u201cThe fact is that we didn\u2019t keep clean sheets for nine games. It\u2019s easy then to blame a particular person or the back line or set pieces, but it\u2019s a collective thing in the end as well. Everyone has to look in the mirror, including myself.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what we all do and that\u2019s what we all have discussed as well. I\u2019m sure we will get out of this, but we don\u2019t get out of this just by talking about it ,\u201d Van Dijk stressed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll try to improve, that\u2019s what we work on; it\u2019s not that we\u2019re doing nothing in training or nothing behind the scenes. We all want to improve, that\u2019s why we\u2019re on the pitch as well. But it\u2019s tough at the moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need each other, we need the support, we need the people that were celebrating with us as well last year to be there for us now even more, and then I\u2019m very confident that we will get out of this because we have the quality offensively, defensively.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the reality is we are looking for a clean sheet but definitely for a win again. That\u2019s the reality.\u201d<\/p>\n
The numbers underline the concern. Liverpool have conceded 21 goals across 14 matches this term, compared with nine at the same stage last season. Over the last four games the defending champions have shipped eight goals. Opponents have adopted a clear long\u2011ball tactic against Liverpool this season: the Reds have faced 710 long balls, representing 23% of opponent passes, the highest total and ratio in the top flight.<\/p>\n
As Arne Slot noted, the one side that did not play long, Eintracht Frankfurt, were beaten in midweek. \u201cIt is definitely that teams have a certain playing style against us; it is a very good strategy to play. We have not found an answer yet,\u201d he admitted. \u201cGoing 1\u20130 down does not help after five minutes. We are still, even today, when we don\u2019t play well, able to score two goals.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut you cannot compete, which we don\u2019t do at the moment, because we concede too many goals. That is not only the defence you do it with 11 players together.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Van Dijk urged teammates to ‘look in the mirror’ after Liverpool’s fourth straight league loss. late<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4050,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,172],"tags":[1162,1006,1100],"class_list":["post-4051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-epl","tag-analytics","tag-captaincy","tag-defence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}