Van Dijk told TNT Sports: “It’s always difficult, in my opinion, to play against [Roberto] De Zerbi teams because if you are not front-footed, if you are late in your press, they can play out pretty easy.
“Obviously they persist and keep on playing and taking those risks, so if you are winning those balls in between the lines then there is plenty of space in between the lines to exploit and I think we did that pretty well.
“But overall I think the performance was very good, something to build on. We will recover and go again.
“Everyone put a shift in. That’s how it should be, especially if you play for Liverpool, and also under the circumstances [as] it was a very good atmosphere. It is a stadium I had never played in before and I was really looking forward to it. A nice atmosphere.”