Virgil van Dijk: Liverpool's Anchor Amidst Transition

Virgil van Dijk has spent a career making chaos look calm. Right now, Liverpool need that more than ever.

The captain turned 35 last month. He is deep into the final year of the two-year extension he signed back in April 2025, the sort of contractual territory that usually signals a gentle fade towards the exit. This doesn’t feel like that. Not even close.

With Andoni Iraola now the third manager of his Anfield reign, Van Dijk stands at the centre of a defence being rebuilt on the fly. Giovanni Leoni is 19. Jeremy Jacquet is 21. Neither has kicked a ball in the Premier League. Joe Gomez is again wrestling with injuries. Ronald Araujo is about to arrive from Barcelona on an emergency loan.

In the middle of all that churn, Van Dijk is the fixed point. The dressing-room reference. The one who still walks out and makes everyone around him stand a little taller.

He may be in his mid-30s, but he remains an elite defender and a dominant voice behind the scenes, a source of certainty at a time when uncertainty runs through the squad.

The price of that reliability, though, has been brutal.

Last season, no player across Europe’s top five leagues logged more minutes than Van Dijk. Before the World Cup alone, he had racked up 5,841 minutes. Then came Qatar, where he played every minute of the Netherlands’ run to the last-32 stage. By the time he flew home, his total stood at 6,141 minutes over 69 appearances for club and country – an average of 89 minutes per game.

For a player in the autumn of his career, one who suffered a serious ACL injury in October 2020, those numbers are staggering. They are also the reason he drew a line this summer.

Van Dijk asked for more rest. Not a token extra day or two. A proper break.

“I’ve had six, seven or eight days [training], so I was very keen to get minutes in my legs and glad I came out of it with no issues,” he said after making his first pre-season appearance on Sunday, in the 3-2 defeat to Monaco.

The relationship with Iraola, he insists, has started on solid ground.

“It has been absolutely fine [working with Iraola], we had a great conversation in the first week when it got announced and the main thing for him to know is that I am here for him regardless.

“Anything he needs, wants to know, wants me to do for the team or whatever I am here for him and hopefully we will be successful this season and that's what we want.

“Nothing to take away from Arne and his staff, we had an amazing time together, obviously last year a disappointment. This year we have a new manager who has new ways of preparation.

“So we have to adapt to a new staff, different training methods but I liked working under Arne and I am sure I will like working under the new manager.”

That willingness to adapt is one part of the story. The other is how hard he pushed to protect his body and mind before another relentless campaign.

After a three-week post-World Cup holiday, Van Dijk went to the club and made a specific request: no place on the pre-season tour of the United States. No long-haul flights. No jet lag at the moment when fitness foundations are laid.

He chose the AXA Training Centre over America.

“I definitely asked for a good break because I felt like I needed it, not only physically but mentally as well,” he explained.

“It was a very demanding year from before pre-season started last year until the day I got knocked out of the World Cup so I felt like I needed a good break and I had maybe three days more than Ryan (Gravenberch), Flo (Wirtz) and Alex (Isak).

“For me it was key I didn't want to go to America because I didn't want to get jet lag and after come back from that as well.

“And I felt like having a couple of extra days at the AXA, doing the testing before the team was there and getting ready for when the team was back to immediately crack on, I felt that was for me personally the best way.”

This is what the late stages of an elite career look like when handled with clarity. No sentiment, no illusions. Just a player who knows exactly what it takes to be available every three days.

At 35, with the spine of the squad shifting around him, Van Dijk is adamant he can still anchor a team that wants to compete on four fronts.

“Yes [I'm ready to go again],” he said, bristling at the implication that age might dull his edge. “Are you going to say I'm 35 years old and I can't do it?

“At the end of the day, you have to look after yourself. You have to be, I wouldn't say lucky, but you have to do everything in your power.

“That is the bare minimum for me because I feel the responsibility to be ready for each and every game. We play every three days. Between games, at home, at the training ground, you have to do everything in your power to be ready to play again.

“For me, I feel good. I am also a late bloomer so you know, maybe...it is what it is.

“I feel fine and I want to make all the fans proud all over the world that support us wherever we go, and that is by winning games and by showing what it means to wear the shirt every time, and that is for me the bare minimum anyway, so we keep going.”

Liverpool will need that relentlessness. Ibrahima Konate has gone. Andy Robertson has gone. Mohamed Salah has gone. All of that a year on from an already major overhaul of the squad. The sense of a new era under Iraola is inescapable, and Van Dijk, heading into his 10th season at Anfield, feels it as clearly as anyone.

“It definitely feels like a bit of a transition, for sure,” he admitted. “It is down to everyone associated with Liverpool to make sure we are building something that will be successful for years to come.

“This year, we want to be successful, but there is a lot of work still to be done.

“We all know how difficult it is to be playing in the Premier League, the League Cup, the FA Cup, and the Champions League, so we need everyone at their best.

“We need to be consistent and win more games. Let's see what the next couple of weeks are going to bring [in the transfer window]. Any quality we can add to the team will definitely be welcome so let's see.”

So the picture is clear. A new manager with new methods. A dressing room in flux. A defence being reshaped around youth and short-term fixes. And at the heart of it, a 35-year-old centre-back who has already carried an extraordinary load, insisting he is ready to do it again.

For Liverpool, the question is not whether Virgil van Dijk is still important.

It is how far this version of him can take a team that is trying to reinvent itself on the run.