After shameful starting defeats, Virgil van Dijk provides a honest analysis of Man Utd.
Liverpool, that haven't started the campaign to their usual high guidelines, face Man United on Monday, also having had a slow start to the season.
With both teams' stuttering starts to the season, Virgil van Dijk admits that Liverpool's visit to Old Trafford has taken on "massive" proportions.
And, while the Reds defender believes bitter rivals Manchester United are suffering from a confidence crisis after two embarrassing defeats to start the season, he knows this is the ideal game for them to put the 'crisis' talk to rest. He also believes it comes at the right time for his own club to bounce back from two draws in their first two games, which could see them trail Manchester City by seven points by the time they play on Monday night.
"It's humongous, but it's not about a statement. we want to win and will do everything we can to do so," the Dutch star explained. "They've had a difficult start this year, and we haven't had the best start either, so it'll be interesting." Obviously, they're not in the best of optimism situations, but this is the perfect game to turn things around for them.
"But we're looking on ourselves and making sure we're ready for it, so we'll work hard this week again."
Van Dijk believes Liverpool's mentality will be crucial in their clash with their long-term rivals, in what promises to be one of the most exciting games of the season. They showed character to come back with 10 men against Crystal Palace, despite an injury-plagued week that manager Jurgen Klopp described as "crazy - it was as if we had a witch in the building."
And van Dijk is hopeful that players like Jordan Henderson, Joe Gomez, Roberto Firmino, Kostas Tsimikas, Naby Keita, Diogo Jota, and Curtis Jones will be fully fit to play.
"We must to deal with it; it's a part of football," he said of the injuries. We must rest before returning to Utd on Wednesday. It'll be another difficult away game, but hopefully we can get some players back and put on a good performance while remaining positive and focused on winning.
Liverpool will undoubtedly be missing Joel Matip, Alex Oxlade Chamberlain, and the suspended Darwin Nunez, and the defender is aware that United will be eager to exploit this.
"In my opinion, they are a good team with good players all over the field." And it's been difficult for us to win there over the years, though we can't deny that last year was a great result! We showed a lot of good spirit and fight in training this week, and we promised to bring that to the game on Monday."
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