Van Dijk: Liverpool need to improve 'quickly'
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Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk has urged his team to "stay calm" after their 2-1 defeat to Crystal Palace, but admits they will have to improve "pretty quickly" if they want to succeed this season.
The Premier League champions suffered their first defeat of the campaign at Selhurst Park thanks to a late strike from Palace substitute Eddie Nketiah.
The result means title rivals Arsenal can close the gap on the league leaders to just two points with a victory against Newcastle United on Sunday afternoon.
"[We're] disappointed in our performance," Van Dijk said after the game.
"Disappointed in the loss, but especially the way we went about it.
"I don't think there is any reason to worry, but we have to improve pretty quickly because obviously we play [against Galatasaray in the Champions League] in Turkey on Tuesday.
We have a very difficult game there as well, so we have to be ready."
Virgil van Dijk demanded improvement after Liverpool were again involved in a dramatic late finish, this time ending in defeat. Liverpool FC/Liverpool FC via Getty Images
Having become the masters of scoring late goals this season, Liverpool thought they had managed to snatch a precious point against Palace when Federico Chiesa came off the bench to draw his team level in the 87th minute.
However, Oliver Glasner's side could have put the game out of sight in the first half alone, with Alisson Becker making a succession of fine saves after Ismalia Sarr had opened the scoring.
"It was the basics that we didn't do well," Van Dijk said of his team's first-half display.
If we had a draw, we had one point too much."
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The Liverpool defender added: "There are loads of challenges throughout the whole season.
Everyone has to deal with it in their own way, but obviously as a team we have to deal with it as well.
"The biggest challenge now is to stay calm.
We have another opportunity on Tuesday in a very interesting stadium, big crowd, Champions League, to turn it around again and focus on the next one and next one."