Van Dijk Says Everyone Wants to See Liverpool Fall

Having won just about everything over the past two years,
pundits and neutrals are increasingly rooting for the Reds to
stumble.

Liverpool have been on top of the footballing world
for two seasons. They’ve played entertaining football, won the
Premier League and Champions
League, earned 196 points.

Once you’ve been on top for a while, though, people start to
want to see you fail—like Liverpool failed on the weekend,
suffering a humiliating 7-2 defeat to an Aston Villa
side that battled relegation last year.

That’s how star defender Virgil van Dijk sees it, at least, with
the Dutch international talking about the feeling that pundits and
neutrals are increasingly eager to see the Reds slip up.

“I think trying to stay at the top is the hardest thing to do,”
he told the BBC. “Everyone wants to see you fall when you reach
the top. That is what life is about, especially these days.

“It is going to be challenging times coming up. We are
champions—something that took a while. We should enjoy the moment
and go for it.”

True or not, it is perhaps at least another motivator. Another
reason for a side that has won just about everything over the past
two seasons to keep going, to keep pushing and striving and digging
deep to win again.

However, Van Dijk thinks that a bigger help might be the return
of fans, which looks unlikely to happen soon in England but that
the defender admits he and his teammates continue to miss
greatly.

“The fans can play a massive part,” Van Dijk added. “When you
concede the fans will lift you and when you score they make the
opponent go further away from you.

“It’s the same case for everyone, but for us in particular
everyone knows how difficult it is to play at Anfield with the fans
behind us. Hopefully things can change as soon as possible because
we need fans.

“It lifts our performances at home but when you play away and
the home fans turn against you, I like that. It gives you
motivation sometimes to do better. It’s something I definitely
enjoy and that I miss.”