Liverpool defender Virgil van Dijk speaks about the performance in disappointing 2-3 loss to Arsenal

Immediately after the defeat, Liverpool centre-back Virgil van Dijk spoke with Sky Sports to give his reaction to the game. The club’s official website has excerpts from his interview wherein he admitted that Arsenal were never going to be easy opponent for the Reds given the form they have been in.

Arsenal were off to a flying start with Gabriel Martinelli opening the scoring a minute into the game. Darwin Nunez equalised at the other end only for the Gunners to hit back the visitors on a counter only ten minutes into the equaliser. It was an easy slide-in for Bukayo Saka past Alisson.

Roberto Firmino came on late in the first half to replace Luis Diaz, who was dealing with a knee issue. Bobby, quite early in the second half, equalised and took his goal beautifully. The game was quite open until the 74th minute when Thiago Alcantara caught Gabriel Jesus’ heel resulting in a penalty.

Bukayo Saka took his chance and put his team up 3-2 with not a lot of time to go until the final whistle. There was not much left in it after the third goal. It was indeed a tough game for Liverpool, and Van Dijk also echoed the same thought.

“It is tough to take in general conceding goals, but we know that they are in the best moment of their lives and obviously they [only] lost one [game] so far but apart from that they are having a great season”

“We know it was always going to be tough. I think they had good moments, created good chances at times and it’s hard to lose it by a penalty in my opinion, but it’s the case so we have to deal with that.”

Next for The Reds

Van Dijk himself was nowhere in the picture for the Gunners’ second goal and had a pretty average game as per his own standards. The penalty, as it stood to be, remained given and there’s nothing Liverpool can do about it now.

Instead, focusing on the larger picture that is the rest of the season and how to go about it should be the main agenda. However, with Luis Diaz and Trent Alexander-Arnold injured and more news awaited about their situation, the immediate run of games will certainly be tough.

With only two wins from eight games, things are certainly not looking good at the moment for the Reds. Jurgen Klopp has a huge task at hand to turn this season around to try and get at least a better finish to the campaign.

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A change of formation was not effective against a much stronger opponent. It won’t be a shocker to see Klopp returning to his trusted 4-3-3 formation in the next game against Rangers in the UEFA Champions League. Our toughest opponent though, will probably be Manchester City in the league followed by that UCL fixture.