Virgil Van Dijk has told Erling Haaland to block out any outside noise as he predicted the new Manchester City striker will be a success in the Premier League.
Haaland endured a frustrating domestic debut for City against Liverpool in the Community Shield, completing just six passes and seeing a last-minute effort from six yards crash off the top of the crossbar.
However, Liverpool defender Van Dijk said that it will be next to impossible for Premier League defences to keep Haaland quiet for much longer, giving him similar advice as he gave to his own new signing Darwin Nunez.
ALSO READ: Man City might have a surprise guaranteed starter for West Ham fixture
Speaking of Nunez, Van Dijk said: "He's a modern-day striker, same with Haaland, similar attributes. It's difficult to play against. He showed it, it was difficult to play against City, they were fatigued I think. He scored and got involved."
And regarding Haaland in particular, who has previously called Van Dijk the toughest defender he's ever faced, the Dutchman said: "Focus is always the same for any striker, he has a lot of qualities to make life difficult for defenders.
"He will make defenders' lives in England horrible, he's so direct, he has everything, he can head the ball, he's quick. Today we kept him at bay, he had one chance, two maybe. Other than that we did well
"I'm not going to give him too much advice but he will know he has to focus on his own game and not look at what others say. There's pressure on people who come in for big price tags. What can you do about it?
"You come in to perform and a club pays a transfer fee. You can't do anything about it. You put your head down, work and in his case try and score as many goals for City as possible. Same for Darwin in our case, hopefully in our case he can score more."
While Liverpool take this year's Community Shield, Van Dijk feels that Liverpool know they must improve against the 'Big Six' sides in their hunt for the Premier League title this season, after a series of draws last term.
"We want to win every game, we tried last season as well," he said.
"It shows the game we played against each other, whether City or Chelsea it was going to be tough. It won't be any different this year, we'll try and go for it again, we don't put a different focus on it. We try to win last year as well.
"We can't look back on the end of the season and thought if we won those games we'd be champions. If you look at it that way it's always going to be tough.
"We all knew how tough this game would be, these games always are and it wasn't any different. We enjoy playing at the highest level and this was the highest level. It was an intense game, open game at times. It was good for us to get the win, very important. Now we begin the season."
ALSO READ:
