Liverpool suffered their first loss of the season on Saturday, dropping to a 2-1 defeat to Crystal Palace. The Reds equalized late, but Crystal Palace scored from a long throw at the death to take all three points. Captain Virgil van Dijk was frustrated with how the squad played on the day and knows it needed to be better.
“Disappointed in our performance. Disappointed in the loss, but especially the way we went about it. I think if we got a draw here then we took already one point too much. That
is the feeling that we have right now.”
“I don’t think there is any reason to worry, but we have to improve pretty quickly because obviously we play in Turkey on Tuesday. We have a very difficult game there as well so we have to be ready.”
The first half performance was one to forget, with players all over the pitch struggling to keep hold of the ball or complete simple passes. After conceding an early opening goal, Liverpool struggled to break down a disciplined Crystal Palace and were hit numerous times on the break after poor turnovers. Only the heroics of Alisson in goal kept the score line manageable. Virgil van Dijk said it came down failures of the basics that let Liverpool down.
“It was the basics that we didn’t do well. Sometimes you can have these days. Hopefully this is the only day this season that we do that. There is a reason they [Crystal Palace] were 17, now 18, games unbeaten. They are very difficult to break down, very disciplined, they defend deep and they don’t mind that, and they have the quality on the break to hurt you.”
“But it started all with ourselves. We were sloppy in possession, didn’t win our second ball fight, and we created momentum for them. They could have been three or four up by half-time. We are lucky that we have, in my opinion, the best goalkeeper in the world to save us. If we had a draw, we had one point too much.”
Liverpool looked to much more composed and positive in the second half, and it seemed like they would come away with a point after an equalizer from Federico Chiesa in the 87th minute. Late goals have become a signature for the Reds this season, but it wasn’t enough to save them on Saturday. Despite the positives of the second half, van Dijk didn’t feel Liverpool did enough to really take a point away based on the overall performance.
“It doesn’t really matter if we score late because sometimes teams are difficult to break down and you have to find a way to win games. Towards the end, teams are getting tired and the spaces will get bigger. So that’s not the issue. It is more looking at our performance, it was definitely not good today. Not good at all. Palace deserved the win that they eventually got as well.”
“If you look at the first half, everybody has to improve. Obviously Ali saved us so I don’t think he could have done more. But second half, we went back to what we are used to doing throughout the season. First half, Flo had a bit of a free role and we tried to make it difficult for their defenders to push up and find space in behind.”
“But they didn’t mind sitting deep and using their strength and that is obviously the counter-attack and the set-pieces because they scored two set-pieces as well. If you win games, it doesn’t mean there are not challenges. There are loads of challenges throughout the whole season. Everyone has to deal with it in their own way, but obviously as a team we have to deal with it as well.”
As we all know, the season is a marathon, and there will be matches that are a slog. Despite the poor performance and result on the day, Liverpool have won seven of their eight matches thus far across all competitions, and will remain atop the Premier League no matter the other results this weekend. The Liverpool captain thinks the club just need to keep their heads on and stay focused and calm as there is a long way to go.
“The biggest challenge now is to stay calm. I mentioned it many times: never get too high or too low. Just work and don’t listen to the outside world too much. You know when you can do better and today everyone knew that.”
