Wednesday, 4th December, 2013
Virgil van Dijk wants to come good on his Holland team-mate Nigel de Jong's backing for the national squad, despite playing the relatively weaker climes of Scottish football.
Centre-back Van Dijk, who is yet to make his Holland debut, has been putting in the hard yards for Celtic this season with 12 Scottish Premiership games and two goals as well.
His efforts against De Jong and his Milan side went in vain in the Champions League, though the latter joined the chorus calling for Van Dijk to be included in the Oranje's plans going forward.
It remains to be seen if Louis van Gaal will deem the Scottish game to be good enough to consider Van Dij, but the 22-year-old told his club website: "It's nice to hear from a very good player.
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"But everything is still with me. I have to play good games and that's the only thing I can do.
"I don't know how they judge players, so I don't know what they are doing but the only thing I can do is play well and win games for my team, and that is what I am trying to do."
Van Dijk and Celtic are preparing to maintain their unbeaten league record since the start of the season – now at 13 games – when they take on Motherwell on Friday.
The game comes on the back of a 7-0 win over Hearts in the Scottish Cup fourth-round, with Celtic sitting five points clear at the top of the league table.
Van Dijk added: "I was disappointed after the Milan game, especially the day after when you see the game back. But you can't keep thinking about it and you have to move on and that's what I did."
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