Virgil van Dijk has been hit with a number of strokes, both at the club, an international front in recent weeks and the Liverpool star will now end the season for a positive season.
Virgil van Dijk admits that he 'hurts' after what a difficult few weeks has been for the Liverpool captain. The Dutchman has passed a heartbreaking some results that recently saw the Reds' Champions League campaign that ended brutally by Paris Saint-Germain.
Liverpool was then defeated in the Carabao Cup final by Newcastle in Wembley. And just as Van Dijk looked forward to a break from his club problems, things got worse on the international stage with the Netherlands.
Van Dijk's side was defeated in the UEFA Nations League play-offs by Spain on penalties after an exciting 3-3 draw, the Spaniards who now sealed a place in the semi-final. And Van Dijk has admitted that the disappointment is now starting to have a mental toll.
“Just lose pain,” he told Dutch television after Sunday's defeat to Spain. “It was a great football fight, but we are gone. That is disappointing.
“We could have made it, but unfortunately Spain progressed. We showed a good version of ourselves in Rotterdam. We tried to spend that, and we sometimes did that.”
Away from his international problems, Van Dijk has already offered a challenging view of the last months of the season. Liverpool is a moving distance from winning the Premier League title during the first season of Arne Slot in Anfield.
And his captain is determined not to be the campaign, while he claims that his teammates do not need an extra drive to finally lift the title. He said: “We have to turn this around. It's how football works: in five days you lose twice and sinks the world, kind of how to say it, and two weeks before everything was, you know, sunshine and rainbows everywhere.
“We all have to realize that the work has not been done for what we are on the agenda. We have to edit our ass [off] Everyone must realize for that. '
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Van Dijk added: “Yes, but for me personally there should be no extra motivation. You play for the biggest prize for which you work so hard from the start of the season, when no one expected that we would be a challenge in the first place, the Premier League, one of the biggest prizes, and then on the side of all other trophies.
“It is clear that the Champions League could not get it, we lost this and the FA Cup that we were eliminated. We have nine games to go and I don't think a motivation is needed to try to get the job done.
“What is needed is that we have to realize that there is hard work and is still a task to do. Each of us, including the boys who may not play that much, boys from the team or the young boys, our fans, so nine games to deal with.”
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