Virgil van Dijk has praised compatriots Cody Gakpo and Ryan Gravenberch after the Dutch duo helped breathe new life into Liverpool's Premier League title challenge.
Gravenberch scored his first top-flight goal and Gakpo posted a man-of-the-match performance including an assist for Diogo Jota
The result moved Jurgen Klopp's side back up to second place behind leaders Arsenal on goal difference, although Manchester City are only a point adrift with a game in hand.
Both Gakpo and Gravenberch have come in for criticism at stages this season following indifferent form
Van Dijk said:
“Cody has been outstanding in my opinion since he arrived at the club. The difficulty he has had was he has played in so many positions.
"He’s learning. He’s so important for the club and will be going forward. On Sunday he was outstanding and so was Ryan. To come in, not only just score a goal, but in possession being so good.
"We see day in day out how good he is. When there is a chance for him to play, as there will be, he showed (what he can do)."
Van Dijk has explained the very simple message that has been driven home in the Liverpool dressing room.
Van Dijk
"We’ve been speaking about that from the first days,"
"Focus on one at a time. We have to win the games in front of us, that's all we can do. We need experience as well in order to do that. We’ll go for it, give everything we have. We have to do that to be champion.
"We should not look at anybody else, just focus on ourselves. It’s been a tough couple of weeks, two weeks maybe, funnily enough things can change very quickly. For us there’s only one task. Five games left, we have to win every one of them.
Van Dijk believes rotation will play an important part over the remaining games.
"I think we were quite sharp already last game," he said. "If you watched it, maybe we were too sharp at the start. We had six games to go and Fulham was a very big one.
“We showed a reaction after some disappointing games.
"We did our job, we won. That’s what it’s all about. It was a good performance. Now it’s time to recover. We go again in three days, big game, Merseyside derby.
"We want to win it. That’s the mindset we always have. They will have that as well. Now we need to recover and take responsibility to be ready for Wednesday."
Van Dijk added:
"It’s difficult to put your finger on it. There’s multiple factors. We’re in the last part of the season, decisive part.
“You need more than playing football, you need to be mentally strong, deal with situations in and out of games, get over disappointments in the game. You have to be ready.
"Now it is about winning games. If you don’t do that, it can work against you in your mind. But we showed a good reaction in the first half against Atalanta, and then again here away against a team who are always tough.
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