With Sadio Mane having left Liverpool during the past off-season, Reds centre-back Virgil van Dijk has now spoken on suggestions that the Senegalese's exit has affected the team negatively.
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The 2022/23 season has got off to a less-than-pleasant start for the Reds; 10 games into the Premier League season and the Merseyside club finds itself in an unfamiliar eighth position.
Despite triumphing over title favourites Manchester City on the weekend, Jurgen Klopp's men have been sub-par for much of the league season thus far.
Many have attributed Liverpool's lack of form in this campaign to Mane's departure during the latest transfer window, when he moved to Bayern Munich.
Van Dijk was recently questioned as to whether or not the loss of the prolific winger was the reason for Liverpool's recent slump, and the Dutchman did not agree.
"That's funny, but I don't think it's that personally," the 31-year-old told Sky Sports.
"Obviously Sadio was a massive player for us, but he wanted to leave, it's not that we wanted to let him go.
"We have players that have come in. Luis Diaz, outstanding. Darwin [Nunez] is getting to know how we really want to defend from the front and the importance of when we have the ball and when we don't have the ball.
"It takes a bit of time in this case, but I don't think that's the exact reason why we are not performing.
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"Difficult start. It's difficult to find a direct reason for it. It could be multiple things, but I have no idea exactly why, and there is no point for us to think about why those games didn't go as well as we wanted.
"We want to improve it now, and in order to do that we have to work each and every day in training, and fight for each yard in the games, and try to win them."
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