Captain Virgil van Dijk delivered a withering assessment of Liverpool’s current form as he told his teammates that “we’re letting the manager and ourselves down”.

The Netherlands international admitted the Premier League champions are “in a mess” following Saturday’s 3-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest at Anfield. Arne Slot’s side have lost six of their last seven league matches to slip to 11th in the table.

“You should be angry and the main thing for me is that everyone has to take responsibility,” he said. “It’s not easy during difficult times but we have to do it if we want to get out of this. We’re definitely letting the manager down, but we’ve let ourselves down as well.

“At the moment it is a mess – that’s just a fact. As the champions we can’t be in the situation we are in right now. What are we going to do about it? We’re going to try to turn it around and that’s the mentality everyone should have.”

Van Dijk believes “panic” set in after Murillo opened the scoring for Forest against the run of play before the break. A poor start to the second half saw Nicola Savona make it 2-0 within 39 seconds of the restart, with Morgan Gibbs-White adding a third late on.

“The first half an hour was good,” Van Dijk added. “We created opportunities. We had moments where two or three times there were crosses in front of (Matz) Sels for a tap-in. Macca (Alexis Mac Allister) had a shot which was well blocked. We were a threat.

“But then we conceded from a set-piece and panic kicks in. As a team, you have to try to stay calm and do the right things. But we didn’t do that and that’s hard to accept. We were nervous in the way we played. We were trying to force things. The way we started the second half was just unacceptable.

“You have to find the calmness to create chances and be clinical in front of goal. But we didn’t do that and Forest were also physically winning so many battles against us.

“We’re having a season with so much inconsistency. We are conceding far too many goals. We had a good couple of days in terms of the sessions preparing for this game. We had good meetings too. But at the end of the day it’s about what you show on the pitch.

“I’m not a quitter. I will never quit. I will keep going but it doesn’t mean it isn’t tough to take.”

Liverpool sit 11th in the league after failing to score in their loss against Forest (Molly Darlington/Getty Images)

Injuries haven’t helped matters with Conor Bradley and Florian Wirtz both picking up muscle problems on international duty, but Van Dijk insists there are no excuses for the current performance levels as the focus turns to Wednesday’s home Champions League clash with PSV Eindhoven.

“I still think you can’t lose 3-0 at home,” he said.

“It is easy to point fingers but you have to do it together. What I want is for everyone to take responsibility on the pitch. We have to do that in order to push each other, to make each other better. When someone is pressing, you have to follow the press.

“It’s basic things but it’s not happening enough. It’s easy to maybe just think about your own situation rather than the collective side when things not going well.

“But you have to be a man and face the toughness and go again, again and again because if you want to give up then you are at the wrong place in my eyes, this club has been through many times of adversity over the years and we’ve always come out of it.

“It doesn’t mean it is easy, it’s tiring but there is no other way. Wednesday is another game so what am I going to do, go home and cry? No, I’m going to go home and try to think how we can turn this around and hopefully that is what everyone is doing as well.”

A significant change of tone from the captain

Win, lose or draw, Virgil van Dijk always stops to speak to the written media.

As Liverpool’s season has lurched from one setback to another he has picked his words carefully. He knows that they resonate. At times he has rounded on what he perceives to be unfair criticism and has urged teammates to “ignore the outside noise”.

There was a significant change of tone from him after Saturday’s wretched defeat. He was as angry as those supporters who had left Anfield an hour earlier feeling so shortchanged.

No sugarcoating, just brutal honesty as he spoke about Liverpool being “in a mess”, and players letting both themselves and the manager down.

Van Dijk was hurting and never shirks his responsibilities. How Slot needs others to follow the captain’s lead if Liverpool are going to salvage anything from this season.