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Liverpool midfielder Florian Wirtz has pushed back on Virgil van Dijk's assertion that the Reds "gave up" during their 4–0 thrashing by Manchester City, though manager Arne Slot delivered an even more scathing reaction to the Dutchman's remarks.
Following the embarrassing FA Cup quarterfinal exit, Van Dijk acknowledged supporter frustration by conceding that the squad may have mentally checked out after shipping a third goal just after the interval.
"I wasn't aware of this, that he said that," Wirtz admitted when questioned about Van Dijk's remarks ahead of Wednesday's clash with Paris Saint-Germain. "But I think I wouldn't agree straight away, because we still tried to create opportunities to turn things around.
"Obviously, as the game wears on and you're in the 80th minute, 3–0 down, it becomes mentally very tough to keep pushing and pushing.
"We just tried to give everything we had—even when it was 3–0 or 4–0. I think we still carved out a few chances. Losing 4–0 to City is not our standard. We wanted to advance in the competition. Next year, we need to come back stronger and perform better on the pitch."
Arne Slot: I Hated Lack of Effort Against Man City
While Liverpool were widely regarded as the underdogs heading into the City fixture and the result alone wasn't a massive surprise, it was the manner of the defeat that frustrated both Slot and the bulk of the Liverpool faithful.
After being torn apart by an Erling Haaland-inspired first-half onslaught, Liverpool's backline crumbled and began committing a series of costly defensive errors. Van Dijk acknowledged the team had surrendered on the pitch, and Slot was more than willing to publicly call out his players' work ethic.
"It's not the first time this season that we've conceded goals that have been a concern to me," Slot told TNT Sports.
"Today there were four in a single game—four chances given up, four goals conceded. That's not a new issue this season. On many occasions we've only given away one or two chances and they've ended up as goals.
"Looking at how we conceded them, I can split them 'two and two'—where with every goal something goes wrong and there's something to improve—but two of the four were goals I was far more frustrated to give away than the other two.
"Two of the four came down to effort. I always take mistakes born from a lack of effort more seriously than mistakes that come from simply being outplayed.
"Sometimes the opposition does something exceptional and that's football, but two of the four goals came from a lack of effort on our part, and that will always be a bigger issue than being beaten by something truly special from the other team."