Virgil van Dijk was unquestionably the world’s best defender, and a genuine shout to be the world’s best player, for a two-year period between 2018 and 2020 when Liverpool were at their peak under Jurgen Klopp.
The Jordan Pickford-inflicted ACL injury three years ago stopped the imperious Dutchman in his tracks, and it understandably took him a while to get back towards his previous lofty standards upon returning to action.
However, a dominant display in Saturday’s Merseyside derby triumph suggested that the 32-year-old is nearly back to his extraordinary best, and a statistic has emerged which supports that theory.
The number crunchers at WhoScored shared a tweet which stated that Van Dijk is one of just three centre-backs (out of 42) to have started five or more Premier League games so far this season and not been dribbled past once, along with William Saliba and Kurt Zouma.
Earlier in his Liverpool career, Van Dijk famously went 50 Premier League games (across a 17-month period) without being dribbled past once, until Nicolas Pepe dispensed with one of the division’s most extraordinary feats of consistency (talkSPORT).
That spell included the entire 2018/19 season, while the Dutchman also had a perfect record in that regard at the start of 2020/21 before Pickford’s brutality put him out of action for nine months (WhoScored).
With the 32-year-old being dribbled past 0.3 times per game in the Premier League and 0.4 per Champions League match last term (WhoScored), it had seemed as if the brick wall of the late 2010s had crumbled somewhat.
However, since replacing Jordan Henderson as Liverpool captain in the summer, Van Dijk has responded with a vengeance, and Jamie Carragher has justifiably said that the skipper’s performances in the first two months of the campaign have been somewhat ‘overlooked’ by pundits and the media at large.
The old adage of ‘form is temporary, class is permanent’ rings very true when we’re talking about the Reds’ number 4, who looks increasingly like his peak self as he leads by example in his team’s bid to get back challenging for major prizes.
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