Club captain made two errors in the 4-0 humiliation against Manchester City
Liverpool were embarrassed by Manchester City in the FA Cup quarter-finals, whipping them 4-0. Mohamed Salah missed a penalty but that would have been scant consolation in the end, and much of the fans’ ire was directed towards captain Virgil van Dijk.
The Netherlands international was woeful in defence (again) and conceded his fourth penalty of the season. That is in 46 appearances so far. In comparison, he had conceded four in his last 319 outings for the club.
But his clumsy trip of Nico O’Reilly for Haaland to open the scoring from the spot was not his only error. His positioning for the third goal was also poor, keeping Antoine Semenyo onside and allowing him to run onto Rayan Cherki’s pass and chip Giorgi Mamardashvili.
Van Dijk apologised to supporters for the heavy defeat, admitting that the team “gave up” after conceding twice before the break.
“I can only apologise to the fans for what we have shown, especially the second half,” Van Dijk said. “Obviously you come out with the right intentions from the dressing room, to hopefully score for 2-1 as soon as possible to change the game. The opposite happens and to come back from 3-0 is obviously very difficult here. But also you shouldn’t give up and that’s maybe, at a certain point, what happened.
“We let our fans down, we let ourselves down, and the manager. The way we played in the second half, especially, must hurt for everyone. It definitely hurts me.”
— Liverpool FC (@LFC) April 4, 2026
The dreadful result ramps up pressure on manager Arne Slot, with Liverpool now needing to win a difficult Champions League quarter-final against Paris Saint-Germain and go on to win the trophy if the Dutch coach is to convince the hierarchy that he deserves to remain at Anfield a third a season. Van Dijk said the team could only succeed if they remained united.
“It’s a together thing, isn’t it?” said Liverpool’s captain. “Obviously [Slot is] responsible as the manager but we are the ones on the pitch that have to do it. The matter of fact is now PSG are waiting for us. I watched them Friday a little bit. It will be so tough again. So we have to be ready mentally as soon as possible.
“I’ve been lucky enough to play for Liverpool for so many years. The main thing we always had was togetherness. Now obviously we are in a little bit of a transition we have to find it. It’s difficult to perform every two days if you don’t have it consistently.”
“We have a responsibility to ourselves and, especially, to the fans. If we want to make something out of this season, then we have to try and produce something special the next three games.”
