Virgil van Dijk has vowed to do “much better” as the Liverpool defender fights to arrest his alarming loss of form this season. By his own high standards, Van Dijk has struggled in the first eight games of the new campaign and the Netherlands centre-back isn’t shying away from his woes.
Van Dijk was singled out for criticism from Liverpool teammates James Milner after failing to close down Jadon Sancho before the Manchester United forward scored in the Reds’ 2-1 defeat at Old Trafford. He was also guilty of several mistakes in Liverpool’s embarrassing 4-1 loss against Napoli in the Champions League.
But Van Dijk is determined to get back on track after helping Liverpool to a tense 2-1 win against Ajax on Tuesday. “What we did last week (against Napoli) was unacceptable, all of us, and the days after that game we definitely had a reality check,” he said.
“I still think I need to improve and that’s fine. The only way to do it is to play the games, learn from the mistakes, don’t listen to the outside world too much, speak to the people close to you. I’ve said it many times, we are all human beings and we all want to do as well as we can and the same goes for me. I know for a fact I can do much better, but we all can do better. I feel very hurt if we concede goals and don’t keep clean sheets and I feel that responsibility, but that’s a good thing. I want to turn this season around not for myself, but for all of us associated with the club and we want to perform as good as we can.”
The win over Ajax came after Liverpool took the lead for only the second time this season. Even then they still looked defensively fragile at times, but Van Dijk insisted there were encouraging signs. “There are reasons for it why it is not going so well. I think the reasons have been highlighted, especially the game against Napoli,” he said.
“We were absolutely shocking that night, we know it, it hurts all of us, it hurts me. We spoke about it, we drew a line under it and we showed glimpses (against Ajax) of what we normally are. We are good if we perform as a team.”

Bayern beat Barcelona on Lewandowski return
Bayern Munich got the better of Barcelona as Robert Lewandowski returned to face his former club on Tuesday. There was also a surprise defeat for Tottenham Hotspur at Sporting Lisbon, and Atletico Madrid were beaten on their trip to play Bayer Leverkusen.
Both Spanish visitors to Germany came away on the losing side, with Barcelona going down 2-0 at the Allianz Arena in Group C as Lewandowski came back to the club he left in the summer after eight prolific seasons in Bavaria.
The Pole scored a hat-trick on his Champions League debut for Barca as the Catalans beat Viktoria Plzen 5-1 last week. He was desperately close to opening the scoring in the first half in Munich, but it was Bayern who went in front five minutes into the second half when Lucas Hernandez headed in from a corner.
Leroy Sane burst through four minutes later to make it 2-0 as Julian Nagelsmann’s Bayern made it two wins out of two in the group. They have now won their last five meetings with Barcelona, including two in last season’s group stage and their 8-2 victory in the 2020 quarter-finals.
Barcelona next face Inter Milan, who got their first points with a 2-0 win away to Plzen in the Czech Republic. Edin Dzeko and Denzel Dumfries got the goals for Inter while the home side had Pavel Bucha sent off in the second half.
Leverkusen claimed their first points in Group B as they beat Atletico 2-0 with two late goals, Robert Andrich and Moussa Diaby both finding the net. Belgian champions Club Brugge top the section with six points after a stunning 4-0 win at FC Porto.
Former Barcelona striker Ferran Jutgla opened the scoring with a penalty before Kamal Sowah, Andreas Skov Olsen and Norwegian teenager Antonio Nusa all netted in the second half.