Liverpool defender Virgil van Dijk says Liverpool have been "spurred" on by last season's failed Premier League title challenge, claiming his teammates are hungry for continued success.
The Reds were edged out by Pep Guardiola's Manchester City by just a solitary point last season, but did lift the Champions League in June after a superb run of form following the turn of the year.
Jurgen Klopp's side have gone on to lift the Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup, and find themselves 13 points clear at the top of the Premier League table heading into 2020 - after winning 18 of their opening 19 games of the season.
Ever-present Van Dijk has now told Sky Sports that last season's exploits have inspired Liverpool to go one better this season, though the players are aware that a lot of hard work is still to be done.
"We are halfway through now and we hope to finish the season on a high so for that, we have to focus on the game ahead of us.
"The whole experience from last year, doing well in the league, only losing one time, winning the Champions League, the whole experience has been helping us so far in our journey this season.
"We came very close, unfortunately City were just a little bit better but that spurred us on to try even harder this year and so we have been winning games, grinding games out and playing good football at times.
The Dutchman continued by revealing that the players enjoy putting the effort in to help drive success, citing last season's near-miss as a key learning for him and the rest of Liverpool's squad.
"We enjoy the hard work too so that is very good. Hopefully we can just keep going doing that and just be hungry for that as well.
"We should be learning from what happened last year and I feel that is definitely what has been going on."
Liverpool head into the new year off the back of a 1-0 win over Wolves at Anfield, which was aided by yet another controversial VAR decision. The Reds have been imperious all season though, and only a miracle will now deny them of their maiden Premier League title.
Source : 90min