Van Dijk on Title Race: You Try to Keep a Cool Head

It’s 23 April, and we go again. Liverpool remain at the top of the Premier League table by the skin of their teeth with three games to play and City sitting on a game in hand. But the Reds keep winning. They beat Chelsea last week, and they beat Cardiff City this week. Huddersfield, who have already been relegated, are next on the docket.

How are the players dealing with the pressure when every game is life or death for their ambitions?

“You try to keep a cool head and I think that’s something we have improved on during the season,” Van Dijk told the official site.

“Just keep doing what we are doing, don’t panic and we will get opportunities because we have plenty of quality in the team and no team can defend at their highest level for 90 minutes. So there will always be slight moments of spaces that we can exploit and I think we did it.”

“The only thing we can do is keep playing and keep winning. Keep enjoying it and hopefully the weather stays nice and let’s go for it. We need everyone, we need all of the fans, and like today as well we had great support, so we will see how it ends.”

Game after game, it seems as though the crowd and fans are experiencing more nerves than the players on the pitch. So much virtual ink has been spilled about the players bottling it, and yet they appear to have every game well in hand. They’ve won nine leagues games in a row, during the end of the season, which is always the most difficult time for any team, and they’ve done it under very difficult circumstances.

It’s painful to know that their destiny is not in their own hands, but also requires a bit of help from the universe and maybe even — good god, why — Manchester United. But that’s how things have shaken out, and the hope is that the team continue taking care of their own business, thereby forcing City to do the same.