Liverpool Frustrated By Leeds Draw, Van Dijk Calls For A Strong Response

Liverpool were held to a goalless draw by Leeds United at Anfield, leaving frustration across the squad as Arne Slot's side missed a chance to strengthen their Premier League top-four position before facing Fulham, despite rivals Chelsea and Manchester United also dropping points earlier in the weekend.

The match brought several unwanted landmarks for Liverpool, who produced 19 attempts and an expected goals figure of 1.96, their highest xG without scoring in a Premier League game at Anfield since April 2024, while recording a first 0-0 in 117 competitive fixtures, last matched against Manchester United in December 2023.

The stalemate meant Liverpool stayed in fourth, still occupying the final Champions League qualification place but failing to

widen the gap, as new statistics showed they have now drawn three straight Premier League fixtures against newly promoted teams, their longest such winless sequence since a four-game run that ended in April 2021.

Data from the Opta supercomputer underlined Liverpool's position in the top-four race, giving Slot's team a 59.7% probability of staying within the Champions League places, a far stronger projection than for Chelsea, rated at 18.8%, and Manchester United, estimated at 6.7%.

Team	Top-four chance (%)
Liverpool	59.7
Chelsea	18.8
Manchester United	6.7

Liverpool's failure to turn pressure into goals came despite several clear openings, including Hugo Ekitike heading wide from a Jeremie Frimpong cross before half-time and Virgil van Dijk nodding off target soon after the restart, while Dominic Calvert-Lewin thought the deadlock was broken on 81 minutes, only for an offside flag to rule out a lofted finish over Alisson Becker.

Another early flashpoint involved Ekitike again, as Jaka Bijol appeared to impede the forward just inside the area before Ekitike remained upright and squared for Florian Wirtz to shoot, a moment that later fed into Slot's wider reflections on Liverpool's approach to physical contact and refereeing decisions.

Liverpool Premier League reaction from Van Dijk and Frimpong

Virgil van Dijk accepted Liverpool's defensive work had been solid but felt the attack lacked sharpness, saying, "Listen, before the game, it was always going to be a tough game, it showed. We didn't create that many chances today, that was the frustrating part," Van Dijk said. "I think we defended well, obviously kept the clean sheet, but obviously you want to win, we should have done better in the last part of the game. It was very tight, midfielders close to the defenders, back five, obviously a lot of intensity they put in, in their way of defending. You have to be patient but play with the right pace, intention. It's easy to say these things, but on the pitch it's never that easy. We take the point, start of the year, there's no time to dwell. "

Jeremie Frimpong echoed that sense of missed opportunity, telling Sky Sports, "It is really frustrating, we wanted to win the game. They defended really well. It ended 0-0, very frustrating but we go onto the next game. We tried but maybe we didnt try hard enough. We had chances and maybe I should have delivered the ball better. "

Liverpool Premier League style debate under Arne Slot

Slot later linked the Ekitike incident to a wider pattern, arguing Liverpool's players often stay upright where others might fall, saying, "I don't think it's a surprise to anyone that one of my players stay on their feet," Slot said. "It happened against West Ham that Lucas Paqueta should have got a second yellow but one of my players stayed on his feet. It's just a team who we are and it's not recognised. I saw Leeds players going down in the second half. The questions is, should we change or not? I don't think we should. If he goes down it probably would have been a red card and a penalty and that would have increased our chances of winning. "

The goalless draw extended Liverpool's sequence of stalemates against promoted opponents and denied Slot's side extra breathing space in the Premier League table, yet the team still holds fourth place, solid underlying metrics and external forecasts in its favour as attention quickly turns towards responding against Fulham in the next league fixture.