Virgil van Dijk says he will speak with Mohamed Salah but insists the Liverpool dressing room are not listening to any of the outside noise. Salah’s extraordinary interview at Leeds dominated the pre-match conversation before Tuesday night’s trip to Milan to face Inter. But with Salah left back in England, the Reds did an Italian job to win 1-0 thanks to Dominik Szoboszlai’s 88th-minute penalty.
Naturally, the focus of the post-match talk was also whether Salah’s career at Liverpool is over. The 250-goal forward’s inflammatory comments left it unclear whether he will ever play for the Reds again. And captain Van Dijk admits it’s been a tough few days since his team-mate fronted the press at Elland Road, but wants to talk to the Egyptian once he’s been from Italy.
Van Dijk told Amazon Prime Video: “Obviously it’s difficult. It’s a collective difficult situation we’re all in. Between Mo and the club, things are going on. For the consequences he’s not here today to help us try to get the three points. That’s the reality.
“I don’t think anything changes in terms of our focus and determination to get results for the football club. I don’t think I’m the one to speak if someone has to apologise. It’s him airing his feelings.
“That’s something that the club has to deal with and us as well. If I look at the dressing room, on Sunday, the day after [the interview], nothing really has changed. We have a responsibility to ourselves and the whole football club and all the fans in the world to perform. The focus was there.”
Van Dijk’s fellow Dutchman Clarence Seedorf was a pundit for Amazon Prime and told the centre-back he feels Salah should apologise for his actions. Van Dijk added: “I’ve known Mo for such a long time. We’re good friends. We’ve been through highs and lows. He’s been a big part of the success I’ve had at the club. I’ve been a big part of his success.
“We speak and those type of things will stay indoors, like it should be. We as a team have to brace ourselves and be against the outside noise. That’s the only thing we have to be ready for. I encourage the players to do so.”
Liverpool‘s win continues a four-match unbeaten run in a season where they have tasted far too many defeats. And Van Dijk reflected: “It’s a good feeling, of winning.
“Especially in the period we are in, trying to find consistency, trying to find something to build on and hopefully tonight is one of those performances. Obviously it’s never easy to come here, against a very good side.
“It was always going to be tough but I think we handled the game well. It could have been a 0-0 game but obviously it ended positively for us for once in the last couple of weeks. Obviously there’s so much noise from the outside world. That’s absolutely normal, if you don’t perform, especially in the circumstances. It’s absolutely deserved as well.
“But it’s down to us to perform on the pitch. That’s the only thing we can control. We want to improve, we want to be consistent, we want to win games. We have the quality to do so but we’re not doing it as much as we like.
“It’s just trying to stick together, be a unit like we always have been. That’s what Liverpool stands for in my opinion. You can understand everyone is happy but the reality is you have to recover. We’re immediately back to Brighton already. Obviously you have to celebrate good moments, you have to enjoy them because otherwise what’s the point of winning?
“But the focus is already [on the weekend]. We stay overnight here, we have to do all the right things, sleep well, eat well. Because Brighton is coming to Anfield. We’ve played Brighton so many years and it’s always a difficult game. What we try and achieve is never get too high and never get too low.
“That’s where we have to speak with each other. It’s easy to say but to act like it and try and do it is the most difficult part. If we do that, we’ll get the consistency back that we had last year and was why we became champions. That’s what we aim for.
“When you don’t win games and you lose them and concede easy goals, which we have done – I was part of that as well – then the outside world focuses a lot more on those type of things. We try to find consistency and today we know they are very comfortable on the ball and have two strikers who play well either each other.
“Everyone put a shift in and ran so hard and defended well. We take the three points and we move on.” Liverpool welcome Brighton to Anfield in their next match having only won one of their last five Premier League outings.
The match will be the last before Salah departs for the Africa Cup of Nations. Victory for the hosts would see them move level on points with fourth-placed Crystal Palace, who welcome title-chasing Manchester City to Selhurst Park.