Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk admits it took him a long time to be fully confident about his knee injury recovery.

Many feel the Dutchman is back to his best.

But the 32-year-old concedes: "When things don't go the way you want, you start thinking a lot because you want to do everything you can to turn it around. Mentally, that hasn't been easy.

"When things didn't go so well last season, individually and with the team, I was really in shock for a while. I had never experienced this before. At the same time, I was telling myself 'This is temporary.'

"But I did have to get used to the new knee. Just take the bending or stretching, the flexion. In the knee joint, everything is closely related. If you can't stretch your knee well, you can't bend it and therefore can't sprint well. This is what makes it so difficult. A serious knee injury is not only tough physically but also mentally.

"The problem is, it is not an injury that disappears overnight. All the tests may show that you are match-fit, but it is also a matter of feeling, of confidence.

"Even if you have been playing for a while, after matches you cannot escape the thought 'if only there is no reaction now'. That took quite a while."