Virgil van Dijk, Liverpool’s captain, plans to call another players’ meeting on Monday. The team’s push for a Champions League spot feels like it’s slipping, and he wants to tackle the problems head-on.

Van Dijk was furious after Liverpool let Burnley equalise at Anfield. Burnley barely threatened all game—except for one shaky five-minute spell in the second half—and yet Liverpool still ended up with just a draw. Four straight league draws now, something the club hasn’t suffered since 2008. He didn’t even stick around long in the dressing room; he bolted out to speak to the reporters, still fuming.

But the real reckoning comes Monday at the training ground. For the second time this season, Van Dijk’s going to challenge his teammates, just like he did after that ugly loss to Manchester United in October, right in the middle of an awful run.

“I’m frustrated that after 60 minutes we started to become sloppy, and it’s not the first time,” Van Dijk said, looking ahead to a huge Champions League trip to Marseille. “We’ve talked about it before, but here we are again. Monday’s meeting is a big one, because Wednesday’s game over there is going to be really tough—not just because of the atmosphere, but because De Zerbi’s teams always make life difficult.”

He’s not interested in making this about himself. He wants solutions. “It’s not about me calling it out. It’s about how we fix it. We all want to win, and we had more than enough chances against Burnley.”

The result didn’t go down well. The crowd made their feelings clear, jeering as Liverpool missed a chance to close the gap on Manchester City. Now they’re clinging to fourth place, just a point ahead of a whole pack—Manchester United, Chelsea, Brentford, Sunderland, and Newcastle are all close behind.

Van Dijk’s response to the boos? Short and sharp: “I don’t like boos from my own fans.”

He knows what’s at stake. If Liverpool keeps wasting chances, that fourth spot’s going to get harder to hold onto. “I don’t look at what everyone else is doing. We need to focus on ourselves. If we play as we did—wasting chances in the last half-hour—it’s going to be tough. We need to improve, not just watch the others.”

It wasn’t for lack of trying. Dominik Szoboszlai smashed a penalty off the crossbar, Florian Wirtz scored his fourth in six games, and Arne Slot’s side seemed set to take control. Liverpool fired off 32 shots but couldn’t find that crucial second goal. Then Marcus Edwards equalised with Burnley’s only shot on target.

There’s some hope: Mohamed Salah is set to return next week. Whether he’ll be ready for Marseille is still up in the air, after Egypt lost the AFCON third-place play-off on Saturday.

Salah left the club a month ago after a falling-out with Slot, frustrated and accusing the team of throwing him under the bus after a string of bad results landed him on the bench.

Van Dijk is clear about Salah’s value. “With his quality, he wins games for us. Off the pitch, he’s huge for the squad too. He couldn’t make the AFCON final, but when he’s back, we need him to help us.”

Andy Robertson didn’t hold back after Dominik Szoboszlai’s mistake against Barnsley. Szoboszlai scored a stunning goal—his 100th as a pro—to put Liverpool in front, then Frimpong doubled the lead. But then, Szoboszlai tried a flashy back-heel in his own box. It blew up in his face. Adam Phillips, an ex-Liverpool academy player, pounced and scored right in front of the Kop.

That goal gave Barnsley a lift after halftime. Liverpool had to dig deep. Late goals from subs Florian Wirtz and Hugo Ekitike finally put the game to bed. Liverpool moved on to the fourth round, with Brighton set to visit Anfield next.

Conor Hourihane, Barnsley’s manager, called Szoboszlai’s move “disrespectful”. Arne Slot said he’d talk to Szoboszlai about it, too.

Robertson explained the mood in the dressing room. “We all said something at the time, but he realised and apologised at half-time. If anyone’s earned a bit of slack this season, it’s Dom. He’s given us everything every game. This was just a moment where he lost focus. It’s not good, especially when we’re up against bigger teams.”

He went on, “What really annoyed me is that the mistake let Barnsley back in. We’ve done that too often this season. From day one, we’ve allowed teams back into games, and sometimes we’ve paid for it. At 2-0, we looked comfortable, then suddenly we’re answering questions again. It was a clear individual error, but after that, we tightened up. Then it was just about getting that third and fourth goal.”

He also praised the substitutes for making an impact.

Robertson couldn’t hide his frustration about Szoboszlai’s blunder. “Calling it a gift for Barnsley is being generous,” he said. “The annoying part is, Dom sprinted sixty yards to win the ball back. The Kop loved it. Maybe that went to his head! We can laugh about it now, but honestly, we can’t give away goals like that.”

“He knows it, too. He’s been brilliant for us all season, and again tonight. He just switched off for a second, but we can’t have that in the six-yard box.”

He added, “Gio (Mamardashvili) wasn’t thrilled. He wants a clean sheet; we all do. It handed Barnsley a way back in, and for a long time, it was 2-1. That made things tense, but we saw it through.”

“We need to find the balance. At the start of the season, we attacked well but left ourselves too open at the back. Now we’ve kind of flipped it.”