Virgil van Dijk has expressed his excitement at playing his first domestic final at Wembley for Liverpool when they face Chelsea on Sunday.
Our No. 4, who has returned to his best form recently after suffering that nasty knee injury back in 2020, has won the Premier League, Champions League, UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup so far during his Anfield career.
“You work so hard from pre-season to get silverware, awards, to win games and that’s how I feel about this as well,” the former Southampton man told the club’s official website.
“It’s a competition where we give a lot of young players the chance; we rotate a lot because we have been in so many competitions, but now we’re in the final and looking forward to getting that trophy [but] it’s going to be very hard because Chelsea are fantastic.
“It’s going to be the first time for me playing in a domestic final with the club at Wembley [and] I’m definitely looking forward to it. It’s going to be exciting and hopefully we can get our hands on the trophy.”
The 30-year-old also discussed the prospect of this Liverpool side winning the League Cup for the first time under Jurgen Klopp.
The club last won the trophy back in 2012 under Kenny Dalglish – current ‘skipper Jordan Henderson is the only player remaining from that squad 10 years ago.
“I don’t think we need any extra motivation, in my opinion, but it is something that we want as a group and we have the chance to go out there and try to win it,” van Dijk added.
“That’s something to be very excited about and I’m looking forward to it as well.
“Obviously we can’t think about that yet but it [winning a trophy with weeks of the season remaining] could help. It is still a big hurdle to overcome and we will see how it affects us, which is hopefully in a positive way.”
It would be great to win the trophy as we head into the business end of the season.
Our 6-0 thrashing of Leeds on Wednesday night means we’re just three points behind Manchester City in the table and are in a great position to progress through to the Champions League quarter-final after our 2-0 first-leg victory over Inter Milan last week.
We may be without Bobby Firmino for the game at Wembley at the weekend but a decision is yet to be made on Diogo Jota’s fitness – the Portugal international may have to settle for a spot on the bench.
It’d be great to keep yet another clean sheet on Sunday and continue our impressive form to win our first trophy of the season.
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