Liverpool showed they can go toe-to-toe with any team on the planet on Sunday, as they came away unlucky not to have beaten Manchester City.
Without a handful of key players, those sent out by Jurgen Klopp stepped up and very nearly stole what would have been an enormous three points.
In amongst a really impressive display, there were a number of top performers for Liverpool. Alexis Mac Allister was a standout, while Luis Diaz drew plenty of plaudits, too.
But perhaps the Red’ star player on the day was the indominable Virgil van Dijk. Van Dijk turned up in a big way to put in one of his best showings since joining the club. And according to CBS Sports pundit Nigel Reo-Coker, the Dutchman might just have proven that he is in fact currently the best player in world football.
“I’ll make a statement now when it comes to Virgil van Dijk,” Reo-Coker began. “If Liverpool win the Premier League title, win the Europa League, they’ve already won the League Cup, Virgil van Dijk should be in the conversation for player of the year and also world player of the year.
“Because what he’s doing and how he’s playing, he’s already going down as one of the greatest centre-backs in Premier League history. But the fact of being a leader, playing in these circumstances and having these young kids and having to navigate, he was sensational. Erling Haaland did not have a touch in the sense of being effective whatsoever and that for me was all credit to Van Dijk. He was sensational.”
Van Dijk having season to remember
Having been well below his best for the majority of last season, plenty of people had written Van Dijk off as being past his best.
For anybody who watched him in 2022/23, it was hard to argue too much with that sentiment. It was the first truly poor year of the centre-back’s time at Liverpool.
At 32, there was a danger that we’d already seen the top of Van Dijk’s peak as player. Ridiculously high though that was, that was a disappointing thought.
After assuming the captaincy though, Liverpool’s No.4 has been as good as ever this year. Sunday was possibly the highlight display, but it feels as though Van Dijk has been brilliant just about every week since August.
There was of course a quite costly mistake against Arsenal in February, and his detractors will no doubt point to that as evidence that he is not what Reo-Coker says he is.
But the wobble at the Emirates aside, Van Dijk has been pretty much faultless. If there’s a better centre-back in world football right now, then we’d be astonished.
As Reo-Coker predicts, if Liverpool do end up winning a couple of big gongs this season, then Virgil should be in the mix for individual awards.
Being out of the Champions League, it’s likely that that elusive Ballon d’Or will continue to evade him. In this kind of form though, who’s to say he can’t push on and scoop it next year?