Liverpool must raise their game for Red Star visit: Van Dijk | Football News

Liverpool defender Virgil van Dijk has said he and his teammates need to improve their form as they prepare to host Red Star Belgrade in the Champions League on Wednesday.

They go into the game after a 1-0 Premier League win at Huddersfield Town in which they were not at their best and often found themselves on the back foot against lowly opponents.

Wednesday’s clash at Anfield is also a chance for Liverpool to get their European campaign back on track after a late 1-0 defeat by Napoli in their previous Group C encounter.

Despite Red Star not having won yet on their return to the group stage of Europe’s elite competition, Van Dijk was not underestimating the Serbian club.

“They are in the Champions League – the best competition in Europe apart from the Premier League – and it will be a hard game,” the Dutchman told the Liverpool website https://www.liverpoolfc.com/news/first-team/321877-virgil-van-dijk-red-s tar-belgrade. “We will need to be 100 percent and I think we will be.

“Against Huddersfield, we should have done even better. Obviously we kept a clean sheet, which is all good, but we could have made it easier for ourselves.

“It’s another Champions League night at Anfield and I’m sure we will recover from Huddersfield and make sure we are ready.”

Napoli lead the group on four points ahead of Liverpool and Paris St-Germain with three, so getting maximum points from the double header with Red Star over the next two weeks could be crucial for the English side’s bid to qualify for the last 16.

The Reds reached the final of last year’s competition but lost 3-1 to Real Madrid in Kiev.

Liverpool manager Juergen Klopp is due to hold a pre-match news conference later on Tuesday when he may have an update on Sadio Mane who missed the Huddersfield game after surgery on a hand injury picked up on international duty with Senegal.