Virgil van Dijk makes World Cup 'focus' claim after Liverpool's poor start to season

dailystar.co.uk:

Virgil van Dijk assured Liverpool he won’t be protecting himself in the lead up to the World Cup.The Holland defender missed out on Euro 2020 as he recovered from an ACL knee injury suffered early on in the 2020-21 campaign.Van Dijk, 31, refused to rush himself back to play in the rescheduled European Championship for his country as he wanted to be ready for the next season with the Reds.READ MORE: Liverpool's star-studded U18s team contains sons of three former Premier League playersNow he is set to lead out the Dutch at the winter World Cup in Qatar but his mind will be focused on the Reds in the build up and won’t be worried about an injury wrecking the big tournament.He said: “I can only speak for myself and I wouldn't worry about me.

I want to go but to be ready, in my opinion, is not to focus on hopefully not getting injured, it is just keep playing, get fit, stay fit and get in a good moment.“Obviously I am very excited to lead the boys out there and do as good as we can but we are not in the situation because of that.Where will Liverpool finish this season?

Let us know in the comments section“I would understand because of the start we had everyone is looking for 'Why?' because the difference is too big but I can assure you that is definitely not one of the reasons.“You focus on the game at the time and that's definitely what we're doing.”Liverpool went into the international break by getting back to winning ways by beating Ajax in the Champions League.But they have won just two Premier League games so far which has led to a lot of head scratching on Merseyside about why last season’s quadruple chasers have not hit the ground running.Van Dijk’s focus this week will be on Holland’s Nations League ties with Poland.