Virgil van Dijk is the first player to break silence on Jürgen Klopp departure

"It's a hard one to take."

Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk is the first player in the team to speak about Jurgen Klopp's shock announcement that he will be leaving the club at the end of the season. Klopp surprised everyone when a video was released yesterday announcing that he intends to step away after the completion of the 2023/24 season - news which rocked the footballing world. Not surprisingly Liverpool fans are bitterly disappointed and even heartbroken by the revelation, but you do wonder how the players reacted, especially when they are in the middle of a season and still in all four competitions. "It's a hard one to take, because the manager means so much for us, to me, to the club, to the whole Premier League I think," Van Dijk told Liverpoolfc.com. "But he made the decision for him and his family. It was always going to be a tough one and it was definitely the case.

"Yeah, he told us in private of course, and all of us were together. Like I said, it's a hard one to take but our mindset is to focus on business. We have a lot of targets still to achieve this year and why not finish the season on a high and together with celebrations for the boss as well? "I think how we always try to manage noise from the outside. Of course this is massive, it's massive news in football. For us, it was also a very big day. But we have big targets this year and that's definitely stressed by the manager as well.

"For us and for me personally as well, I want to make sure the rest of the boys think like that too. I think that's the case as well. We all want to achieve so much and that mindset was already there since pre-season and that doesn't change. "It will maybe even give you an extra boost to do that extra or maybe enjoy it a little bit even more together and make the last part of the season, the last bit of the manager's time at the club, the best time he's ever had. That's what we strive for and that's why it's business as usual." Related links:

• Jurgen Klopp weighs in on discussion about his successor as Liverpool manager
• Four managers who could replace Jurgen Klopp and i's obvious who they should pick
• Jurgen Klopp’s last Liverpool game could be the Europa League final, in Dublin