The Reds were beaten 3-0 by the Italian outfit at Murrayfield in Scotland as Liverpool endured a fourth successive game without victory.
A sloppy defensive display saw Liverpool caught on the counter several times despite having a strong back four of Trent Alexander-Arnold, Joel Matip, Andy Robertson and Van Dijk on the pitch.
Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp was particularly displeased after the first goal, directing some of his discontent towards Van Dijk.
The Dutchman tried to track a runner in the box with centre-back partner Matip unable to close down Lorenzo Insigne, who curled into the bottom corner in the 19th minute.
And the Daily Mirror say that Van Dijk did not seem to agree with his manager’s assessment of the scenario as the pair exchanged words from a distance.
But the influential defender laughed off the tiff as he stayed coy on what was said between the two.
Asked what Klopp told him, Van Dijk smiled and replied: “Just things… between me and him.”
He then added: “It’s not necessary to say. I think everyone has to communicate with each other. Sometimes you have to tell someone the truth, that’s how it is.”
Liverpool’s disappointing pre-season campaign has sparked concerns as their competitive campaign gets underway for real this weekend.
The Merseyside outfit take on reigning Premier League champions Manchester City, who they ran close in the two-horse title race last term, in the Community Shield at Wembley this Sunday (3pm).
But Klopp is confident that his squad – who only welcomed back Alisson Becker, Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino, Naby Keita and Xherdan Shaqiri to training today with Sadio Mane due back next week – will find their form.
Yet the German insists the result of their clash with rivals City will not be an indicator of the season to come after it.
“I don’t want to find excuses before we play them but we had a completely different pre-season. We played the pre-season without six players so I cannot sit here and say ‘that must be the statement for us’, that would be completely mad,” he told a press conference.
“We have to be as good as possible that day, we cannot change it. I cannot lie to the people and say ‘it’s no problem making a pre-season without six players’. If you have to do it, you have to do it: you have to travel, we have to play in America in difficult circumstances, that’s how it is.
“But we had the best pre-season of our lives? I cannot say that and you see that in the results. But the sessions were good, really good.
“The games then, from a freshness point of view, came in the wrong moment but we cannot change that [and] we have to do what we have to do. The only problem is we do all the games in public and everybody sees what we are doing. Some people have concerns, some people don’t.
“It’s all OK, we have to prove ourselves during the season and not in one game and if I would say this must be the statement for the season then I would be really a bit mad.
“It has nothing to do, for me, with the rest of the season. It’s a game and if we had only eight players available, for example, I would like to try to win it. It’s a final, it’s the first time that I realised that nobody sees it like that, to be honest: a ‘curtain-raiser’, it’s unbelievable!
“We think constantly about the game and how can we prepare it and people say ‘Oh, do they really play?!’ That’s not too cool but it’s how it is and we cannot change that as well.
“We’ll try to be as ready as possible, that’s what I can say, and if we win it, good, does it have an influence on the season? I don’t think so. And if we lose it has it an influence on the season? It’s not allowed.
“So then we have another five days [before the first Premier League game vs Norwich]. We cannot risk players or whatever, we have to see who we can line up and who will train and who will play, but of course we have to make sure we have a line-up that gives us an opportunity to win the game and that’s what we try.”
