Van Dijk: We Weren’t At Our Best Against Aston Villa

Let’s just call it how it is: Saturday’s match against Aston Villa was not a high point for Liverpool Football Club. Sure, we won 2-1 in dramatic fashion, but sloppy passes and missed chances made the game less enjoyable and more rage-inducing at many, many points. Thankfully, defender Virgil Van Dijk feels the same way.

“I think we weren’t at our best, that is the reality,” Van Dijk told the Liverpool Echo.

“We could have done better with the free-kick we conceded but we kept pressing and they only had the moment of danger when they tried to square it to Wesley and I managed to clear it in the second half.

“We had a good chance with Sadio’s header, Ads [Adam Lallana] missed one and Mo, so we were there. We had our moments to score and we didn’t, so in the end we scored a well-deserved equaliser and obviously we were able to win it at the end.

“I think the main thing is we have to keep doing the same things and it is difficult for teams to keep defending as well as they do at the beginning if we keep playing like we do for the full 90 minutes.

“It always means you get chances and I think we definitely deserved the equaliser based on the second half, and obviously to get the win is something we will definitely take.”

Aston Villa were well organized and difficult to play around for many stretches of the match, making it all the more frustrating to watch. They were able to start counterattacks easily by picking up on our passes and while Liverpool just needed five minutes to win the game, there’s 90 minutes to play.

“Villa have qualities and strengths we had to be aware of and we kept them in defending mode most of the time,” the defender continued.

“They looked a bit dangerous on the counter but it is difficult for any team to keep defending so well the entire game, for the whole 90 minutes, and that is what happened. It is not easy.

“You have to just do your natural thing when you have the ball. You just have to keep playing and I know people will judge us but I think we deserved at least a point.”

Liverpool look now to another Champions League night at Anfield as Genk come to visit on Tuesday before the all important match against Manchester City on November 10th.