Jamie Carragher has dedicated an entire column for the Telegraph on the brilliance of Virgil van Dijk, who he claims is already one of the best Liverpool centre-backs of the past 30 years.
We’d suggest that while the Dutchman obviously has some way to go to surpass Carra and Sami Hyypia’s greatness, in terms of trophies, van Dijk is possibly a better central defender than both, pound for pound.
Carra recognises this in his piece, telling us he first noticed van Dijk’s potential for greatness while he was playing for Southampton against Liverpool in 2016/17.
“The first time I saw Van Dijk and thought he was special was in a game against Liverpool, a 0-0 draw in which he not only caught the speeding Sadio Mane but completed a perfectly timed tackle to stop a certain goal,” he said.
We’ve tracked the moment down via YouTube and you can watch it below:
Like Carra, we were massively impressed by van Dijk at Southampton, but were not aware of the fact he is genuinely world-class.
In fact, we’d go as far to say as he’s currently the best defender on the planet, ahead of the likes of Diego Godin, Sergio Ramos and Giorgio Chiellini.