Virgil van Dijk and Liverpool to stay grounded in title pursuit | Football

Virgil van Dijk has said Liverpool do not consider a commanding lead in November as cause for celebration and are focused only on improving form that has delivered 34 points from a possible 36 so far.

The 3-1 defeat of Manchester City on Sunday left the unbeaten leaders nine points clear of the champions and eight ahead of Leicester in second. Liverpool have beaten every other side in the top six this season but Van Dijk said there will be no letup in pursuit of the club’s first league championship for 30 years.

“We are in a very good situation,” he said. “That is something we can’t deny. We all feel and know the season is too long to properly celebrate that we are nine points ahead or something and we won’t. The mentality we have is we just have to carry on and keep doing better than we did against City. That is the mentality we should take into every game ahead of us.

“Everyone is happy about the win but I don’t think, because of what the mentality is like, we will get carried away. Nine points clear; we are very happy with the situation but there are so many difficult teams to beat in the league, so many difficult grounds to go to that we all have in our minds that we shouldn’t get carried away.”

Van Dijk believes memories of last season’s title race, when City overhauled a seven-point deficit on Liverpool, will be another factor that keeps Klopp’s squad grounded.

He said: “We took a lot of experience last year. Good things but also some things we should have done better. Hopefully we can only make sure we react better and do better.

“You need to have that bit of luck as well throughout the whole season, so at the moment we are very happy in the situation. We draw one game and won the others and hopefully we can keep it going.”

Liverpool are awaiting the results of a scan on Mohamed Salah’s ankle amid concerns the forward may have aggravated an injury during the win over City. Salah has been nursing an ankle problem for the past few weeks and required treatment in the first half on Sunday following a challenge by Fernandinho, although he was able to continue until being replaced by Joe Gomez in the 87th minute.

The Egypt captain reported for international duty after the match and will have a scan in Cairo to determine whether he can feature in Thursday’s Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against Kenya.