Van Dijk: Liverpool will not give up in Premier League title fight
Virgil van Dijk conceded Sunday's loss to Manchester City hurt Liverpool badly, but he refused to give up on their title hopes.
Liverpool have not given up hope of retaining their Premier League crown, so says Virgil van Dijk.
The Reds were beaten 3-0 by Manchester City on Sunday, leaving Arne Slot's team eighth in the table heading into the international break.
Liverpool have now lost four consecutive Premier League away games for the first time since April 2012 under Kenny Dalglish (four).
Those four defeats in succession are now more than the Reds suffered in their first 21 away league games under Slot combined (W13 D5 L3).
Liverpool are eight points adrift of leaders Arsenal, and according to the Opta supercomputer, their chances of winning the title have now dropped to 7%, but Van Dijk insisted they will not give up in the title fight.
"The reality is that we lost 3-0 and that is a big blow," said Van Dijk.
"We are not going to give up whatsoever. We are in November and we are ready for a long season and a big fight."
Having missed an early penalty, Erling Haaland opened the scoring before Nico Gonzalez made it 2-0 with a strike that took a deflection off Van Dijk.
Liverpool trailed by 2+ goals at half-time of a Premier League game under Slot for just the second time (previously v Fulham in April), while it was the first time they had trailed by 3+ goals at any point in a league match since the Dutchman took charge.
Jeremy Doku's stunner went on to take the game away from Liverpool in the second half, though matters might have been different had a Van Dijk goal in the first half been allowed to stand.
Van Dijk thought he had made it 1-1 when he headed in from Mohamed Salah's corner, only for it to be disallowed due to Andy Robertson standing in an offside position in front of Gianluigi Donnarumma.
However, Wayne Rooney, who has been involved in a war of words with Van Dijk in recent weeks, feels it was the wrong decision to disallow the goal.
"I don't think it has affected it all [Robertson impacting Donnarumma], when you look at it," Manchester United's record goalscorer Rooney said on BBC Sport's Match of the Day.
"Robertson is in an offside position but Van Dijk, good movement, really good header and Donnarumma can see the ball, we know he can see the ball the whole way and Robertson is to the side of him.
"Donnarumma is outstretched, he has a full dive, there's no affect from Robertson on that goal for me."
