Virgil van Dijk has advised Liverpool to forget about what their Premier League rivals are doing and concentrate on themselves, following the defeat to Arsenal at the weekend.
The Reds now trail the champions and leaders by nine points after the 1-0 loss at Anfield on Sunday, and Daily Mail writer Ian Ladyman said that the result shows that Andoni Iraola’s side are ‘not ready‘ to properly contend for the top-flight title this season.
It was a second home defeat in the space of a month for LFC, who were also beaten on their own patch by second-placed Manchester City, and the veteran Dutch defender acknowledged that his team are in a transitional phase after changing head coach over the summer.
Van Dijk: Liverpool must focus on themselves
Speaking to reporters after the defeat to Arsenal, Van Dijk proclaimed (via Liverpool Echo): “We have to just focus on ourselves.
“I don’t think it is good to think about the other two [Arsenal and Man City] and even [third-placed] Brighton. We have to focus on ourselves and we are in a process.
“We have been together now for four months but we play at Liverpool and we want results every three days, especially at home.
“The main thing is we keep working very hard and that we see improvement, but the matter of fact is we are in a transition. [Arsenal] was a great opportunity to get a good result, but unfortunately it didn’t happen, so we have to take it.”
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Title tilt isn’t the aim for Liverpool this season
Nobody realistically expected Liverpool to challenge for the title at the start of the season, so it wouldn’t be a failure if the Reds aren’t in contention for the trophy by the time April rolls around.
The objective for this campaign was to finish closer to the summit and show discernible improvement on a wretched 2025/26, and recent performances suggest that Iraola is capable of delivering in that regard.
His team are currently on course to end the season with 63 points (just three more than last term), but if they improve on a home record of just one win from five league games so far, they should be able to nudge that projected total into the 70s.
Liverpool competed admirably with Arsenal and Man City (up until the harsh red card for Ryan Gravenberch) but weren’t as clinical as the top two in those games. With more ruthlessness in attack, the Reds seem capable of at least closing that gap.
Van Dijk is correct – the goal for this season isn’t to compete for the title, but to qualify for the Champions League with relative comfort and lay the foundations for further improvement in 2027/28.
There’s still plenty of room for improvement, but at least there are signs of this campaign being much more convincing than 2025/26 had been.