Top of the Premier League table and top of the Champions League table may make for a very merry Christmas for Liverpool and Virgil van Dijk, but the club captain says all that he and his teammates have done so far is give themselves a platform.
What matters now is what they do with it. What matters is the next game and, if they take care of that, then the one after that. Because most of this team and most of these players have been involved in title races and deep European runs before.
They all know well that nothing is won in December. That a run of bad domestic results as the calendar turns can see any advantage disappear in the league; that those autumn wins don’t matter to your opponents in the Champions League knockouts.
“We want to be up there in May but we have seen how difficult that is,” Van Dijk noted. “We focus about what’s next ahead of us, that’s the only thing. I’m not getting dragged into any conversations about potentially winning a trophy or two or three or four.”
“It’s all about being there, each and every game. That was Spurs—a tough one but in the end we made it a very good game—and the next is now Leicester. That’s the only thing we have influence on. So we don’t think what could be out there in May.”
Few expected the transition from legendary former manager Jürgen Klopp to new head coach Arne Slot to go quite as seamlessly as it has, and a lot of that is down to the quality and—just as importantly—the full and eager buy-in of the players.
There will be tests to come, starting with Leicester on Boxing Day in a game they will be heavily favoured in and so must avoid any let-up in to avoid a slip. Then a trip to West Ham to cap off 2024. Then Manchester United early in the new year.
Win the first and it gives you the chance to win the next. Keep doing that and come April and May this Liverpool side could be positioned to do something special, but only if they keep their drive and their focus always on that next opponent.
Having welcomed Ange Postecoglou and Spurs to the Arne Slot penitentiary in their last outing, they get the chance to add Ruud van Nistelrooy’s Leicester to the list next, and it’s hard to imagine Van Dijk and his teammates won’t hold their focus.