Captain Virgil van Dijk says Arne Slot was furious in the away dressing room after Liverpool slumped to a 2-1 Premier League defeat at the hands of bottom club Wolverhampton Wanderers.

The league champions were architects of their own downfall as Andre grabbed a deflected 94th-minute winner at Molineux. The Dutch defender admitted after the game that fifth-placed Liverpool now have little margin for error if they are going to secure Champions League qualification this season.

“Yeah he (Slot, head coach) was angry,” Van Dijk said. “Of course and he had every right to be angry because we played poorly. Second half maybe there was more urgency but it still wasn’t good enough.

“It’s very disappointing. It’s down to us to learn from it and turn it around, but it’s tough for us to take and it’s tough for our fans to take.

“We come back here on Friday in the FA Cup and we want to go far in that competition. We have to turn up here on Friday with a totally different quality and different performance on the pitch.”

Asked about the possible impact of missing out on the Champions League in terms of the club’s summer transfer business, Van Dijk added: “100 per cent. The stakes are very high.

“Listen, if you play for Liverpool, it’s always been like that. It’s down to us, together with our fans, to get the results we need to get into the Champions League.

“Now the decisive period starts. We have to just go for it. We have to take this on the chin. No matter how hard it is to take.”

Mohamed Salah ended his Premier League goal drought by cancelling out Rodrigo Gomes’ opener, but Slot’s side were alarmingly open in the closing stages having posed so little attacking threat earlier in the contest.

“Based on our performance up until they scored their first goal, we deserved to go 1-0 behind,” Van Dijk said. “We were very poor. We were too slow and predictable in possession. We made the wrong decisions.

“We didn’t concede any big chances up to that point. Defensively, we were still solid. But towards the end, when the game started to open up, any team can become dangerous and that’s what happened.

“The opening goal came from a long ball that we lost up high. It was a big space to defend. There was still plenty of time to turn it around. We scored the equaliser but then it became very chaotic. We went back to making the wrong decisions when we had the ball.

“Maybe we wanted to force the winner too much. It looked and felt very much like a basketball game in those last five to 10 minutes.”