Reaction'That's what's expected' - Salah and Van Dijk on Man City victory
Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk insisted Liverpool must now build on the 1-0 win they battled hard to secure against Manchester City.
The Reds emerged victorious from a powerful tussle with the reigning champions at Anfield on Sunday, with Salah’s second-half strike the difference.
It was an important response to last weekend’s defeat at Arsenal from Jürgen Klopp’s men, quickly following up the 7-1 success over Rangers in midweek.
Extended highlights: Liverpool 1-0 Man City
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Post-match, Salah and Van Dijk gave their verdicts on the game – and what Liverpool must take from it – to Sky Sports…
Van Dijk
On what it took to get that result…
It takes a lot. Good to get three points. It was always going to be very intense, that’s what has always been happening over the last years. It was nothing different today. First half I think we played quite well, didn’t give much away. I don’t think we created too much either. Second half we had to defend a bit more and we had chances on the break to even score more. But we won and that’s the most important thing.
On how intense the match was…
It is, for both sides. It’s a lot of running, a lot of communication and it was who wants it more, and obviously I think today we showed a lot of fight.
On Liverpool ‘having to defend for their lives’…
That’s what you have to do every game. Obviously today if you drop off a slight percentage then obviously they will punish you. We did very well. It’s important to get the clean sheet and move on, we’ll focus now on West Ham.
On making a crucial headed clearance to prevent Erling Haaland from scoring in the second half…
That’s what defenders have to do. I tried it and I was there – good that I was there.
On growing into the game and the influence of the crowd at Anfield…
It is always like that. Obviously when certain moments happen in the game it puts fuel to the fire a little bit in a positive way for us. It started with the hard work we put on the pitch – that’s the minimum expected here at this beautiful football club. We showed that and the energy we had back today was definitely needed in order to push us forward and keep hold of the 1-0 advantage. They played a big part and that’s what we need for the rest of the season, especially when we had a difficult start to the season.
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Salah
On the performance being based on ‘guts and character’…
This side is always hard for us to play home or away, because they always dominate the game, they try to keep the ball as long as they can. I think the most important thing we have to take from here is just three points and we need to carry on, because our position in the league is not the best. It’s just one game and we just need to carry on.
On whether it feels like more than three points to beat City…
Hopefully. Hopefully it gives us more confidence so we start winning games. The last few weeks, as you saw, we were not on our best. We started already from the last game, and this game as well we won so we just need to carry on.
On if he was worried his goal wasn’t going to come on the day…
I’m not worried when there’s chances, to be fair. If I miss, it’s fine, in my mind it’s like it’s going to come again. I start to worry more when there’s no chances for me, but today we created chances. You could see when I missed the first one, I was calm because I knew that the second one is going to come. I managed to score the second one and we won the game.
On trying to get back into the title race…
We’re still far away from that. We just need to focus on each game and take one game at a time. We don’t have to think about the title at the moment. Personally, I love to play always for a title, it’s in my head we’re going to fight for it. But we just need to focus more and take one game at a time, we don’t have to feel more pressure that there is still a gap between us and the first and the second. Of course, we’re going to [try to] play for the title. You can see the team is unbelievable, the club, everybody here; we should be in a better position than where we are now. The players are excited to win again and I think that gives us a good push for the next games.