Van Dijk warns Liverpool: Believe we can win trophies or stay home
Virgil van Dijk says Liverpool want to win everything this season and told team-mates who don't believe it is possible to "stay home".
Liverpool are enjoying their best start to a campaign since 1961-62, having won their sixth straight competitive match with a late 3-2 Champions League victory over Paris Saint-Germain on Tuesday.
Jurgen Klopp's side were defeated by Real Madrid in the Champions League final last May, but Van Dijk believes the Reds have the capability to secure their first piece of silverware since the 2011-12 EFL Cup this time around.
"If you are going to be on the pitch and you don't believe it then you'd better stay home," said the centre-back.
"You need to have belief, you need to have belief in everyone in your team and I have all the belief that's there in this team.
"I'm enjoying every single bit of it. If you look at the team we have, if you look at the whole squad, players who are not even in the squad who have so much potential and so much quality, it says a lot about our team."
Not a bad start to our @ChampionsLeague campaign. Now is time to recover and get ready for the weekend! #UCL pic.twitter.com/BkvhJpYbEk
— Virgil van Dijk (@VirgilvDijk) September 19, 2018
Van Dijk acknowledged Liverpool's perfect start will inevitably come to an end, although he is confident they will keep their eyes firmly fixed on their ultimate goal of winning trophies.
"We've had a good start. There will be a day when we have downs as well, but then it is how we react – and I am not worried about anything," he said.
"We know the season is very long, we have four competitions to play in. We want to win everything, that is basically our mindset. Otherwise, you'd better stop.
"You need to have ambitions, and with the size of this club, with the people around here and the history of the club, we want to try and win everything. It's going to be hard, it's going to be something very difficult to do, but you know we are going to just try it. That is the only way forward.
"We want to compete for every competition like we did last year, and we wanted to start well this time. We've had a good start to the season, nothing has been won yet, we need to show it every three days now.
"It's a great time to be a Liverpool player, you want to play these games, you want to play these clubs we are going to face. You want to play at the highest level."