Ahead of hosting Manchester City tomorrow, Van Dijk declared the Reds see themselves genuine title challengers now.
"It's the experience that will obviously help you, in my opinion, and it should help you, and my feeling is, it will," Van Dijk told Mirror Football.
"If you play for Liverpool, then you always have these expectations. If you ask anyone in the Premier League, they would love to be in the position we are, at this point in the season, eight points clear. I'm a winner. I want to win in each and everything I compete in.
"I'm not participating just to be there; I want to be successful, and I'm playing games to win, and I want to be successful at the end of the season.
"We're going to give it a try. We're going to go for it and hopefully enjoy it.
"We're going to have difficult moments, going to have games where we play poor. But we want to find a way to win each and every game. And if you're ready to suffer, ready to have these difficult moments and overcome them, then it could be a very special season. But we'll see. I think we just have to enjoy the ride."
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