Virgil van Dijk says Liverpool must stick together to end their poor form after their underwhelming start to the season continued with a 4-1 Champions League defeat at Napoli.
A return of nine points from their first six Premier League games puts Liverpool some way off the pace set by Arsenal, Manchester City and Tottenham, and their woes were deepened on a chastening trip to Italy on Wednesday.
A Piotr Zielinski brace, as well as goals from Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa and Giovanni Simeone, condemned the Reds to the joint-heaviest defeat in their Champions League history.
Not since Arsenal against Inter in 2003-04 (a 3-0 loss) has an English team started a Champions League campaign with a three-goal reverse, while Liverpool conceded three first-half goals in the competition for the first time since October 2014 (v Real Madrid).
Despite enduring a torrid outing that saw him give away a first-half penalty, Van Dijk expressed his confidence in the Reds ability to bounce back.
We re not in the best shape, the best situation, but we re going to make this right – that s the confidence I have, he told the club s website.
We need each other, we need to stick together – not only us as players but the whole club.
Obviously we ve been through it all and that s the message. Obviously we re all human beings, we want to try to perform as good as we can. Sometimes you can have a bad patch and at the moment we re in it. But I m confident we can get out of this and enjoy our football again.
— Liverpool FC (@LFC)
Stick together, don t point fingers. Everyone knows that everyone can do better. What I said, we re not robots, we re trying to perform and you can have bad moments.
It s how you deal with them and now we ll definitely have a good look at what happened, speak with each other and focus on the game ahead of us.
It s good for us that there s a game quite quickly after this and hopefully [we] get a great performance and result.
Liverpool host Wolves in their next Premier League outing on Saturday, before resuming their continental campaign against Ajax on Tuesday.
Van Dijk knows the importance of getting their Champions League group-stage campaign back on track as quickly as possible, adding: It can change, definitely.
There s so many games still to play but you wanted to have a good start. The situation is how it is.
3 Liverpool have suffered the heaviest defeat by an English Premier League side in their opening game of a UEFA Champions League campaign since Arsenal lost 3-0 to Internazionale in 2003-04 tonight was the Reds’ joint-heaviest defeat overall in the competition. Chaotic.
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe)
Next game in the Champions League will be Ajax at home and we need the fans, we need a good performance from us.
It starts obviously on Saturday with a good opportunity against a good side as well, so we ll give everything. What I said, the key is to be together. We need everyone.
If you start blaming others and don t look at yourself or create negativity around the club, then you re not getting out of this. I m fully confident that we ll turn this around together.
Wednesday s demoralising reverse means Liverpool have lost on all three of their trips to Napoli under Jurgen Klopp, the most they ve travelled to a particular side without avoiding defeat during his tenure.
