Van Dijk: Liverpool need to improve ‘quickly’

Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk has urged his team to “stay calm” after their 2-1 defeat to Crystal Palace, but admits they will have to improve “pretty quickly” if they want to succeed this season.

The Premier League champions suffered their first defeat of the campaign at Selhurst Park thanks to a late strike from Palace substitute Eddie Nketiah. The result means title rivals Arsenal can close the gap on the league leaders to just two points with a victory against Newcastle United on Sunday afternoon.

“[We’re] disappointed in our performance,” Van Dijk said after the game.

“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 [against Galatasaray in the Champions League] in Turkey on Tuesday.

We have a very difficult game there as well, so we have to be ready.”

Having become the masters of scoring late goals this season, Liverpool thought they had managed to snatch a precious point against Palace when Federico Chiesa came off the bench to draw his team level in the 87th minute.

However, Oliver Glasner’s side could have put the game out of sight in the first half alone, with Alisson Becker making a succession of fine saves after Ismalia Sarr had opened the scoring.

“It was the basics that we didn’t do well,” Van Dijk said of his team’s first-half display. “Sometimes you can have these days. Hopefully, this is the only day this season that we do that.

“There is a reason they 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.”

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The Liverpool defender added: “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.

“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. We have another opportunity on Tuesday in a very interesting stadium, big crowd, Champions League, to turn it around again and focus on the next one and next one.”