Jamie Carragher has joined the queue of pundits lining up to heap praise on Liverpool defender Virgil Van Dijk after his performance against Crystal Palace on Monday night.
The 27-year-old earned man-of-the-match for the clash with Palace, helping his team maintain a 100% start to the Premier League with two wins out of two.
The former Reds’ centre-back – who now works as a pundit for Sky Sports – believes that the club figure has the attributes needed in order to become a legend at Anfield alongside the likes of Alan Hansen, and go down in the club’s history books.
“I knew Van Dijk was a good player, but he is better than what I thought. We’ve always said Liverpool can’t win the Premier League because of their defence, but now they have Van Dijk, who I think is the best centre back in the Premier League,” Carragher told Sky Sports.
“I can’t think of a defender off the top of my head that is better. Over the next three or four years, if Liverpool could win a league or a Champions League, I think Van Dijk has the potential to actually go down alongside Alan Hansen if we’re talking about Liverpool’s best ever teams – that’s how good he is and how good he can become.
“There isn’t another centre-back that ticks almost every boxes in terms of presence, pace, strength and ability on the ball. Players and leaders like him have to be the ones that take Liverpool to something big. That’s when you’ll be remembered, when you win something big.”
OPINION
Van Dijk has certainly not been short of praise from pundits following his display the other night. We are only two games in and already the likes of Carragher are saying that he can achieve legend status at Liverpool, which is one of the greatest compliments a Reds’ player can receive. As Carragher says, he ticks every box at the moment, which is amazing considering he only joined from Southampton seven months ago. If they are praising him so highly now, that it is scary to think how he is going to develop and get better over the course of the season. Van Dijk is just entering his peak at the right time – and he may end up proving the critics who slammed Liverpool for spending £75 million on him wrong. He has the potential to be one of the league’s greatest ever defenders – and the Reds will be glad that they have somebody with his experience on board this season.
