Beating PSG in the Champions League has given Liverpool the belief to win the quadruple, says Virgil van Dijk

Six wins from six in all competitions has given Liverpool the confidence to believe they can compete in all four competitions

Miguel Delaney
Thursday 20 September 2018 07:26 BST
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Virgil van Dijk says Liverpool’s mindset is to “win everything” this season, as he willingly spoke about the quadruple, and said such “belief” is the “only way forward”.

Liverpool have started their season with six wins from six in all competitions, culminating so far in a last-minute 3-2 win over Paris Saint-Germain to open the Champions League.

Van Dijk says it has created a vibrant atmosphere throughout the club, and that this is “a great time to be a Liverpool player”.

“Everyone is excited, everyone is feeling good, everyone wanted to be part of this,” the centre-half said. “And you know, we know the season is very long, we have four competitions to play in, and you know – we want to win everything, that is basically our mindset, otherwise, you'd better stop.

“You need to have ambitions, and with the size of this club, with the people around here and the history of the club, we want to try and win everything. It's going to be hard, it's going to be something very difficult to do, but you know we are going to just try it.

“That is the only way forward… We want to compete for every competition like we did last year, and we wanted to start well this time. We've had a good start to the season, nothing has been won yet, we need to show it every week, every three days now.

“We have to be ready. But you know it's a great time to be a Liverpool player, you want to play these games you want to play these clubs we are going to face. You want to play at the highest level, you know, enjoy it.”

While some might think such ambitions are rich for a club that has not won any trophy in over six years and lost three finals already under Jurgen Klopp, Van Dijk feels that belief is essential.

Virgil Van Dijk says it is essential to believe they can compete
Virgil Van Dijk says it is essential to believe they can compete (Getty Images)

“If you are gonna be on the pitch and don't believe it then you'd better stay home. You need to have belief, you need to have belief in everyone in your team and I've have all the belief that's there in this team. I'm enjoying every single bit of it. If you look at the team we have, if you look at the the whole squad, players who are not even in the squad who have so much potential and so much quality, it says a lot about our team.

“Obviously in the end it is about hard work, making sure everyone is there for each other and I think it started for us in the pre-season. Hopefully we can keep on going. We've had a good start. There will be a day when we have downs as well, but then it is how we react – and I am not worried about anything.

“We were not in the final last year for no reason, I think we should already get that respect for what we did. But obviously this season is new, everyone starts over, every game.

“It started today, but then the weekend again with Southampton, the cup against Chelsea, we need to keep going keep improving, but also enjoy it – you know it's the highest stage and you want to play these games as a player.”

Of another sensational game on Tuesday night, Van Dijk said: “I'm not gonna get used to this. Yeah, very happy with the win, I think we should be very happy today, the first game in the group stages was always important and we won it against a very good side, so we should be very happy.”

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