ReactionVirgil van Dijk: I'm already looking forward to the second leg at Anfield

Lucas Bergvall’s late winner settled Wednesday night’s game at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, with the goal arriving moments after the Spurs midfielder had escaped a second yellow card for a foul on Kostas Tsimikas.

The Reds’ unbeaten run was therefore halted at 24 matches and when Van Dijk was asked by Sky Sports to explain what led to just a second loss of the season, the captain said: “Obviously we played against an intense team with good attacking players. They can make it difficult, they keep running.

“I think we created good moments [and] good opportunities at times – not really clear-cut chances in my opinion, but still enough that we could have scored.

“Unfortunately we didn’t. It’s quite cliched but it’s half-time now and I’m looking forward to the game back at Anfield.”

Van Dijk continued: “I’m not sure we were a level or two [below our best] but obviously at times I think we could have done better.

“But that’s part of football as well: you try to play your best game ever, every one of us, and at times we played through them nicely and we created some one-v-ones on the side and we created some dangerous moments.

“But they were able to defend it much better than they did when we played here a couple of weeks ago. And, yeah, we move on – we take it on the chin.

“Like I said, it’s half-time and we have another 90-plus minutes to go and like I said, I am really looking forward to that.”

• Read our match report from Tottenham Hotspur Stadium