Van Dijk REACTS as Liverpool are knocked out of Champions League by PSG on penalties | OneFootball

Virgil van Dijk admits Liverpool’s penalty shootout defeat to Paris Saint-Germain is ‘part of football’ after Arne Slot’s men were eliminated from the Champions League.

Darwin Nunez and Curtis Jones missed the decisive spot kicks after PSG had levelled the tie through Ousmane Dembele during the first-half of normal time.

Liverpool have the chance to bounce back straightaway with the Carabao Cup final to look forward to on Sunday and Van Dijk was keen to remain positive.

“It was a very intense great game of football, I think to be part of it as well,” he claimed.

“It was totally there for Liverpool and what we showed in Paris and unfortunately were out on penalties and that is the reality.

“I think in the first half we created dangerous moments and they have the quality as well, and then it comes down to penalties.

“It’s part of football, I said to the guys, obviously, you can be disappointed because we’re out of the competition, but chin up and get ready for the next challenge, a beautiful one on the weekend.

“I think we were pretty good today as well, and you want to go as far as possible, but we knew when we drew PSG it was going to be very difficult. We saw in Paris when we struggled but we won, and today we saw a very good Liverpool side but we’re out of the competition.

“Today from the first second and then extra time, when fatigue kicks in for both sides, it becomes more open but especially regular time, we showed a very good game. We can speak about the game for ages but we’re out of the competition, that is the reality.”

Head coach Slot added: “Incredible performance. Especially if you compare it with last week. The first 25 mins we were all over them, created chance after chance but then we went 1-0 down.

“It feels a bit unfair to go out in this round already if you were top of the table and face a team like PSG. Last week we had a bit of luck, we didn’t have it today.