There is no denying that Virgil van Dijk has been instrumental towards re-establishing Liverpool as one of the best in world football – providing their defence with a sense of structure and leadership which often seemed non-existent before his arrival from Southampton in 2018.
Van Dijk silenced those who criticized the £75m price tag which brought him to Liverpool after his debut game for the Reds when he scored the winning goal against Everton in the FA Cup. From there, Van Dijk has proven himself to be an essential part of Jurgen Klopp’s side with the Dutchman being named as the 2019 PFA Player of the Year and the runner up for the 2019 Ballon d’Or.
From a physical standpoint, Van Dijk is the complete package. His dominance in the air has allowed Liverpool to become more effective at defending corners and set pieces and his ability to read the game and perfectly time his tackles is second to none. Van Dijk is surprisingly quick too, with him bursting into a sprint a lot of the time just when it seems like he’s has been beaten.
But is Virgil Van Dijk the best central defender the Premier League has ever seen?
Over the 6 years, he’s spent in the league, Virgil has made up a total of 148 Premier League appearances – resulting in 91 wins and 28 loses with a win percentage of 60% which currently puts him ahead of legends from across the league including Rio Ferdinand, Sol Campbell and former Manchester City captain Vincent Kompany. Like most of the statistics surrounding Premier League defenders though, Chelsea’s John Terry tops this one with a win percentage of 63% – an incredible feat considering that he played a total of 492 games in the league.
In terms of trophies, Van Dijk currently sits behind John Terry in this department despite 1 Champions League, 1 Super Cup and 1 Club World Cup. That being said, his first Premier League title looks well on its way after the FA ruled out the “null and void” options from this seasons campaign on Monday, May 11. In order to have won the most trophies as a Premier League defender, Van Dijk will need to win a grand total of 17 major honours before he retires to put himself ahead of Terry who won 16 trophies with Chelsea including the Europa League, Champions League and five league titles.
In terms of Van Dijk’s goal-scoring ability as a defender, he’s accumulated a total of 12 goals and 3 assists and is well on his way to overtaking Gary Cahill’s record of 27 goals and Leeds United legend Ian Harte’s record of 28. Van Dijk has some way to go before he’ll reach John Terry’s record of 41 goals to become the highest-scoring defender in Premier League history, but it’s important to note that Terry had over 3 times the number of league appearances that Van Dijk has now by the end of his career – giving him much more game time to reach this groundbreaking record.
Likewise, Van Dijk has managed to keep a clean sheet in 41% (57) of his Premier League appearances which put him amongst the best in this area of the game as well alongside Liverpool’s Daniel Agger and Manchester United’s Steve Bruce. If Van Dijk can keep this up and Liverpool continue to bring in world-class players to support him then the centre back might be able to break Ricardo Carvalho’s percentage of 46% by the time his playing days are over.
At the relatively young age of 28, Van Dijk still has much of his professional career ahead of him and he’s outlined his devotion to Liverpool and his desire to achieve great things at the club on numerous occasions. Therefore, it’s likely that we’ll be seeing the Dutchman around in the Premier League for some time to come – giving him more time to break these records and firmly establish himself as the greatest defender the league has ever seen.
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