Virgil Van Dijk has been a truly significant signing for Liverpool. He has transformed a once brittle defence into one of the best in the League.
Van Dijk moved to Liverpool from Southamptom for a whopping 75 million. It is still the highest any club has ever paid for a defender which meant that critics will pounce on him at any mistake that he makes. Van Dijk has absolutely smashed any doubts on him being world class. Many pundits have even gone ahead and said that he is the best defender in the league.
Liverpool snatched him while Chelsea and Manchester City were also in the chase for him and it has been an absolutely steal. Van Dijk is a ball playing centre back and has the vision of a pretty good midfielder.
He is an amazing aerial presence and handles with crosses in the box pretty well. With young Joe Gomez beside him in the last two matches, he has shown that he can be a great leader as well. Everytime, Gomez loses his positional sense or steps out of the defensive line, Van Dijk always keeps him in check and covers whenever needed.
Liverpool has kept the most number of clean sheets since the turn of the year and it isn’t hard to imagine why. In the second half of the season, Lovren and Van Dijk were pretty good between themselves. Liverpool probably wouldn’t have reached the Champions League had they continued defending like they did in the first half of the 2017-18 season.
A certain section of Liverpool fans have already given him the Sami Hypiia status at the club but Van Dijk certainly has quite a lot of time left in his career. He could maybe unleash another side to himself and also become a goalscorer like Sergio Ramos. He has the potential to be the best in the world and he is certainly on the right track.
