Virgil van Dijk’s Liverpool contract expires in less than a year as an uncertain era beckons for the Reds.
A lot has changed at Anfield in the last year, and a lot more will change over the next year.
The recent announcement of new 30% minority owners, 1892 Holdings, featuring Amit Bhatia and Jeff Bezos, guarantees wholesale changes at the club, with the legal language of the contract signed with FSG granting the new stakeholders the right to buy the club outright within 12 months.
However, this gargantuan development aside, there has already been so much change at Liverpool in the last 12 months that it’s daunting to consider more could take place.
The squad that won the Premier League in 2025 has been totally decimated, with most of the starters sold and replaced, and van Dijk will be the next player to take his leave.
Cody Gakpo is set to join Manchester City this summer, and his compatriot and captain, van Dijk, is out of contract in less than 12 months’ time.
The £400,000-a-week contract – worth a total of £20.8m – will expire on 1 July 2027, when the iconic centre-back will be 36, with little chance of another contract renewal, even if there’s a chance he will still be operating at an elite level.
The logic of dismantling Liverpool’s title-winning squad is not standing up to scrutiny
It’s always easier with hindsight, but Liverpool’s decision to rip up the squad that won the Premier League in the 2024/25 season is not ageing well.
A deleted tweet from the Liverpool Echo’s Paul Gorst expressed this exact sentiment.
Paul Gorst in a recently deleted post about the LFC squad. #LFC pic.twitter.com/IVyqmB8UTC
— KJ (@KJLFC_1) August 29, 2026
Since the end of the 2024/25 season, Liverpool have sold 12 players with the potential for more to leave this summer before the window closes on Tuesday.
The players sold or released are:
- Caoimhín Kelleher
- Trent Alexander-Arnold
- Luis Diaz
- Darwin Nunez
- Jarell Quansah
- Tyler Morton
- Ben Doak
- Nathaniel Phillips
- Rhys Williams
- Mohamed Salah
- Ibrahima Konate
- Andy Robertson
Liverpool could still sell Cody Gakpo, Stefan Bajcetic, and Harvey Elliott in the next 48 hours, but with van Dijk likely to join this list in 2027, it’s insane to think about how much has changed in such a short space of time.
