Virgil van Dijk says Liverpool’s formidable advantage in the title race will be no cause for premature Anfield celebration as he turned minds to the hazardous Christmas period.

Liverpool’s victory against Manchester City increased the gap to nine points over the champions and eight over second placed Leicester City, as strong a position as the club has been in at this stage of a Premier League campaign.

But after only 12 games, Van Dijk insists no-one at Liverpool will consider the win over City as being even close to decisive.

“We know the season is too long to properly celebrate that we are nine points ahead, or something like that, and we won’t,” said Van Dijk.

“Obviously, we are in a very good situation. That is something we can’t deny. The mentality we have is we just have to carry on and keep doing better than we did (against Manchester City). That is the mentality we should take into every game ahead of us.”