Virgil van Dijk makes bold Liverpool promise and vows Reds history will not repeat itself

Virgil van Dijk has promised Liverpool will learn from last season’s “disappointment” to make sure they do not fall short in the hunt for trophies.

Liverpool are still in the mix for a historic quadruple as they are six points clear in the title race, they have reached next month’s Carabao Cup final, face an FA Cup tie at Plymouth on Sunday are qualified for the last 16 of the Champions League.

But van Dijk warned they were in a similar situation at the same stage last season when they won the Carabao Cup final for a record tenth time - and yet that ended up as their only piece of silverware. They fell away in the title race and ended up behind Arsenal and champions Manchester City who finished nine points clear of Liverpool.

Liverpool also crashed out of the FA Cup at the quarter final stage to Manchester United and were knocked out of the Europa League by Atalanta as the fixture list and injuries caught up with them.

It is something that still haunts Van Dijk who insisted the whole squad must learn lessons from last season if they want to progress and take advantage of their position now.

Holland defender Van Dijk said: “Everyone has more experience from last year so obviously the end of last season was a little disappointing so when there’s disappointment you have to turn it into experience for the next season.

“If you don’t do that, then you don’t progress. But what I’m seeing now is the players are doing the right things in order to overcome what happened last year.

“There’s no guarantees of course but that’s the basic and, let’s see, let’s see what it brings. But we also have to enjoy the ride, focus on ourselves and don’t listen to others, don’t get dragged into other conversations, just try to win whatever the next game ahead of us.”

Jurgen Klopp had already announced his intention to quit by this time last year. It was supposed to inspire Liverpool to leave their departing manager with a raft of silverware.

It did not work out like that even if they did win the Carabao Cup final against Chelsea. They were beginning to feel the injury list by the time they won at Wembley and then the squad was tested to the limit.

So, van Dijk was rather dismissive when asked whether it helps to win the first trophy of the season. “I don’t know because last year it didn’t help!” said van Dijk.

“Listen, you try to win each and every game so hopefully it will be different. But you saw last year that we couldn’t get the job done and the other two were much better in the end. But we’ve put ourselves in a good position, physically, mentally, points-wise ahead of the games that we have. But we should not get carried away and that’s what we have to do.

“We were in all competitions around this time as well so, listen, it’s a new regime and the manager is doing some things differently to Jurgen. What Jurgen did was very successful and hopefully what this manager does and implements for us will be successful as well.

“We’ve put ourselves in a very good position. But it’s February I’m definitely not thinking about what could be there, either after March 16 or the end of May. We just have to focus on the next one, the next one and then we’ll see.”

Slot is working miracles in his first season at Anfield. One of the most eye-catching parts of his management is the way he is getting the best from his squad. While the likes of Arsenal and Tottenham are suffering from devastating injury lists, Liverpool are resting and rotating to perfection.

When Spurs boss Ange Postecoglou talks about injuries being about bad luck, that does a disservice to the sports science in all of this. Fatigued players get more injuries. The art is to rest players and also not push them too hard in training.

Years ago, managers used to get questioned when players got injuries from being in the red zone. Now it is just accepted. And that is why Slot is benefitting from his clever management.

Van Dijk added: “You have to do all the right things. You have to be committed to your craft, do the right things in terms of recovery, nutrition, pick up all the right stuff in training and prepare for what’s ahead of us.

“Obviously last year we went into the final we had a lot of injuries so hopefully we can get everyone fit and try to win a very difficult game.

“You have to make sure that you are ready physically, to be intense and to be able to run. It’s a lot of responsibility, it’s part of our lives and our jobs.”