After finishing fifth in the Premier League in the 2022/23 season, Liverpool missed out on Champions League qualification last season.
They were forced to fight it out in the Europa League, but returned to the Champions League with an impressive third-place finish in Jurgen Klopp’s final season in charge.
Ahead of their season opener against AC Milan, Liverpool defender Virgil Van Dijk is pining to play in Europe’s biggest competition and has been candid about how he can’t wait to play in Italy.
“I missed it. I can’t wait to be out there hearing the Champions League tune and leading out the boys.”
“A club like Liverpool needs to be in the Champions League and we are finally back and let’s go out there and put a much better performance in than we did today as it is needed otherwise you are going to have an issue.”
“I’m really looking forward to it and hopefully all our fans travelling over there to support us will be in high spirits and loud voices.”
Liverpool had started the season well with three consecutive Premier League wins, but they missed out on three points in a performance that could have been a loss when they hosted Nottingham Forest at Anfield.
Despite poor conditions, they were outclassed in many areas, including tactics, passion and the quality of their reserve players.
We have an away game and a difficult battle ahead of us, but we will do everything in our power to bring home a good result in order to recover from a game in which we found many new issues to address.
Can they bounce back from their humiliating defeat and get slot football back on track?