Virgil van Dijk has questioned whether the Liverpool squad are taking enough collective responsibility to lift Arne Slot’s struggling side, admitting the “mess” they are in should never happen to defending Premier League champions.
The captain warned that any player without the appetite to fight through the current adversity is “in the wrong place” and conceded the team are letting their head coach down.
Liverpool hit a new low with a 3-0 home defeat to relegation-threatened Nottingham Forest on Saturday, matching their heaviest-ever Premier League loss at Anfield.
It was their sixth defeat in seven league games and marked the first time since 1965 they have lost back-to-back league matches by at least three goals, following a 3-0 loss at Manchester City.
The Reds have slipped into the bottom half of the table for the first time in 10 years, increasing pressure on Slot amid growing external speculation.
Virgil van Dijk did not hold back when assessing the team’s form and their responsibility to support the head coach.
“We are definitely letting him down but we’ve let ourselves down as well,” he said. “You look at yourself first and then you help each other get out of this mess because at the moment it is a mess – that’s just a fact.
“As the champions we can’t be in the situation we are in right now but it’s a fact. What are we going to do about it? We’re going to try to turn it around and that’s the mentality everyone should have.”
When asked if there was an angry mood in the dressing room after the Forest defeat, Van Dijk responded: “Yeah, you should be angry. The main thing for me is that everyone has to take responsibility.
“Are people doing that? I don’t know. But you have to do that. It’s the main thing I want the boys to do. It’s not easy during difficult times but we have to do it if we want to get out of this.
“What I want is for everyone to take responsibility on the pitch. We have to do that in order to push each other, to make each other better. When someone is pressing, you have to follow the press.
“It’s basic things but it’s not happening enough. We have to get back to that. It’s easy to maybe just think about your own situation rather than the collective side when things are not going well.”
Van Dijk added: “Thinking about last year, which I don’t like to do that much, we had a new manager and no-one knew what to expect and the consistency we had was incredible.
“This season we don’t have any consistency, we concede far too many goals, we are losing battles and everyone is responsible for it and I hope everyone sees that. We have to take responsibility to turn this around and it is easy to point fingers but you have to do it together.
“We have been through it together and won the league and everyone was part of it and happy and when you go through a tough time you have to stick together and not point fingers, you have to be a man and face the toughness and go again, again and again because if you want to give up then you are at the wrong place in my eyes because this club has been going through many adversities over those years and we’ve always come out of it.
“But it doesn’t mean it is easy, it’s tiring but there is no other way. Wednesday (against PSV Eindhoven at home in the Champions League) is another game so what am I going to do, go home and cry? No, I’m going to go home and try to think how we can turn this around and hopefully that is what everyone is doing as well.”
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