Liverpool defender Virgil Van Dijk was thrilled after Liverpool beat Napoli 1-0 in the Champions League to qualify into the Round Of 16.
It was that man again, Egyptian superstar Mohamed Salah, who found the net for the Reds in the 34th minute at Anfield in a must-win encounter against Serie A side Napoli on Tuesday night. A 1-0 victory was enough for Liverpool to qualify into the next stage or if Napoli scored, the Reds needed to win by a margin of two goals.
Liverpool had a host of chances to increase their lead, falling to the likes of Salah and Sadio Mane but their poor finishing meant that the home side had to endure a nervy finish, which they did thanks to their goalkeeper Alisson who pulled off a point-blank save in injury time to deny Milik the opportunity to level things up.
Apart from their finishing, Liverpool was quite brilliant overall and deserves their victory on the night. Dutch central defender Virgil Van Dijk was sensational at the heart of the Reds’ defense and the defender said he had massive hopes from the Champions League as well as the Premier League.
Speaking to news outlet Goal, the 27 year old central defender explained that Liverpool wants to target and win both the Premier League and the Champions League, “It’s something that we all want, it’s something that we are going to give everything for, We want to play on the highest level and the Champions League, other than the Premier League for us, is the highest level. We want to reach the maximum and hopefully do better than we did last year in the Champions League. You need to have dreams, you need to go for it, otherwise, why would you be a footballer? I think it was a bit of a classic performance. In the Champions League, in the home games we played, we showed our class.
Van Dijk went on to explain that the situation was a bit tenser and Liverpool needs to finish off their chances but if not the attack, the defense must hold things together, “I understand [nerves in the crowd] because if they score one goal we need to score another two. We had big chances and you’re going to be frustrated when you miss those chances, including myself. We could have made it a lot easier, we could have scored another two/three, we didn’t, and then it was [important] for us to win our battles and keep it tight and we did.”
Van Dijk has certainly helped Liverpool’s defense big time and he is correct when he states that the Merseyside club must compete on all fronts.
