Virgil van Dijk makes Premier League title prediction with Liverpool promise

Virgil van Dijk insists Liverpool have to learn from the mistakes of last season if they’re to challenge for the trophies again.

The Reds may have a new head coach in Arne Slot but the club captain is looking to build on last campaign Jurgen Klopp’s side lifted the Carabao Cup last February and, at one stage, had the chance of a quadruple.

But they lost in the FA Cup to bitter rivals Manchester United in the quarter-finals before a surprise exit in the Europa League to eventual winners Atalanta in the last eight. Then Manchester City and Arsenal pushed ahead of them in the Premier League title race.

Now they’ve had a reset with a new boss and coaching staff but Van Dijk is hoping the experience of last term will help this group of players. When asked on the areas the team need to improve, Van Dijk told ESPN: “It’s difficult to give an answer to that because there are so many things that play a part.

“Obviously two other teams were just more consistent, they were better in dealing with the situation, they had more quality at the time. And we were maybe a little bit too inexperienced. We had a little bit of injuries, we were not good enough, maybe the nerves kicked in.

“That’s definitely something we have to learn. But I can’t really put it on one particular thing that went wrong and why we couldn’t compete until the last day. But I think everyone had to reflect, had to think about what happened last season over the summer, and come back with an improved mindset and skillset as well in order to perform until the very last day and hopefully be successful.

“That’s the aim, we want to be successful, we want to compete until the very last day in every competition that we play in. We know that is very difficult but we are going to try it, and that’s something I definitely can promise.”

Liverpool have yet to make a first-team signing this summer so it will be largely the same squad this season, certainly for Saturday’s league opener against Ipswich. While they fell short in the Premier League title race, the team was still good enough to get into the top four and return to the Champions League.

And while the club have not splashed the cash, Van Dijk is not ruling out the six-time winners of the competition adding a seventh European Cup.

“[We missed it] a lot,” said Van Dijk. “Obviously it was our own fault; the year before, only after March we started to play much better and we came very close to having Champions League [qualification] and unfortunately we didn’t.

“To have Champions League back this year is big and I’m really looking forward to that, I’m really looking forward to being out there again and hopefully being successful.

“We know how difficult it is to win that competition so we’re going to fight, hopefully have good games and enjoy [it] and win as much as possible.”