Florian Wirtz, Arne Slot Clash Over Virgil van Dijk’s ‘Gave Up’ Admission

The nature of Liverpool’s 4–0 defeat to Man City left fans frustrated.

The pair both had messages for Virgil van Dijk. | Marc Atkins/Getty Images

Liverpool midfielder Florian Wirtz has rejected Virgil van Dijk’s claim that the Reds “gave up” in their 4–0 defeat to Manchester City, although manager Arne Slot had a much harsher response to the Dutchman’s comments.

After the humiliating collapse in the FA Cup quarterfinal, Van Dijk acknowledged criticism from fans by admitting the team might have given up after conceding a third goal shortly after half-time.

“I didn’t know about this, that he said this,” Wirtz admitted when asked about Van Dijk’s comments before Wednesday’s meeting with Paris Saint-Germain. “But I think I would not agree directly because we still tried to create chances to turn the game around.

“Of course, when the game gets longer, and it is in the 80th minute, and you are 3–0 down, it is mentally difficult to go and go and go.

“We just tried to give our best in the game—also when it was 3–0 or 4–0. I think we also had a few chances then. This is not our standards that we lose 4–0 to City. We wanted to go through the round. Next year, we should go better and be better on the pitch.”

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Arne Slot: I Hated Lack of Effort Against Man City

Virgil van Dijk faced particular criticism. | Shaun Brooks/CameraSport/Getty Images

While Liverpool were always seen as the underdogs against City and the loss, in isolation, was not a major shock, it was the nature of the defeat which irked both Slot and the majority of the Reds fanbase.

After conceding a first-half blitz to Erling Haaland, the Liverpool defense fell apart and began making a handful of sloppy errors at the back. Van Dijk admitted the team gave up on the pitch and Slot was all too happy to put his team’s work rate on blast.

“It’s not the first time this season that we’ve conceded goals that were a concern to me,” Slot told TNT Sports.

“Now there were four in one game, four chances conceded, four goals conceded. That’s not the first time this season. I think many times this season we’ve only conceded one or two chances and those were goals.

“So the manner we conceded them, I think I could separate them ‘two and two’ where every goal you concede something goes wrong, and you would like to improve something, but two out of the four were goals I hated more to concede than the other two.

“Two of the four had to do with effort. I always mind mistakes from effort more than mistakes from being bad on a football pitch.

“Sometimes the other team does something really well, and that can happen, but two out of the four we lacked effort in those situations and that’s always a bigger thing than conceding because the other team does something really special.”

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