Virgil van Dijk says Liverpool’s set-piece problems are a ‘killer’

“It’s something we have to improve. I would say at least 75% of the time or even more, it’s not even about the first contact. It’s the second phase that is the killer.

“Is it a mental thing? I hope not. If that’s in your head then it’s an issue. Personally, it’s not in my head.”

Excluding penalties, Liverpool have only scored three goals from set-pieces in the league. Their difference of minus nine is their worst in a Premier League season.

“We have defended so many set-pieces very well. But we’ve conceded too many goals like that and it hurts. We have to improve that. Training is the only way to get better at it,” Van Dijk added.

“It’s not been good enough. We all realise that. We have spoken about it. We need to turn it around. That’s why we work on it almost every training session.”

Liverpool manager Slot said: “Unfortunately we’re maybe the only team that hardly ever scores from a set-piece and, even worse, we constantly concede.

“But then, I think I said two, three or four weeks ago, we have to make sure that when things go against us – it could be a set-piece, it could be other things – we still need to find a way to win.

“In the last two games we conceded from a set-piece but we were able to win and that hasn’t happened many times this season. That’s progress for me, but it’s obvious there are more things for us to improve and this is definitely one of them.

“I think we have been unlucky in multiple situations in our set-pieces. It is 18 games now and we need to improve.”

Liverpool’s third league win in a row took them up to fourth in the table.