'From the first session': Arne Slot shares what has really stood out to him about Virgil van Dijk this season
01/04/2025 10:00 AM
Liverpool players enjoyed some extended time off this week before preparing for Sunday’s clash with Manchester United.
For the first time in a little while, the Reds had seven days between fixtures, after thrashing West Ham last weekend.
Somewhat unusually, it has been reported that Arne Slot allowed the Liverpool squad several days off before coming back to training.
Having only returned to the Liverpool training ground on Thursday, Slot does not have loads of time to work with his players before Sunday’s big match.
However, judging by the Liverpool head coach’s comments on Friday, he does not need to look much more closely at his squad.
Speaking in his pre-United press conference, Slot picked out Virgil van Dijk in particular as someone he has been so impressed with on the training ground.
Arne Slot hails Virgil van Dijk leadership
Van Dijk has been in the news recently mostly because of his quickly expiring contract.
However, it’s fair to say that because of the brilliance of Mohamed Salah this season, the Dutchman has gone a little under the radar.
The truth of he matter is that Van Dijk has been as good as ever at Liverpool. And as the 33-year-old celebrated seven years as a Red earlier this week, Slot admitted that it is hard to pick a fault in his captain’s game.
“Virgil has a lot of game intelligence, he reads the game very well,” raved the Dutch coach. “He’s big and strong, he’s fast.”
“I was impressed by how he is in ball possession. From the first session I did I was like ‘wow’ this is someone who can delay his choice, he can wait until the last moment to play a ball through the lines. He’s a complete player.
“Of course even for Virgil there are some things in his game we’d like to see improve a little it,” Slot added. “Don’t ask me what but I’m telling Virgil this. But he’s doing outstanding for us.”
“He’s also the one who leads the team from start to finish. If we go out on the training ground, the moment I blow my whistle and the exercise starts, I will hear one voice for sure, one player, and that’s Virgil.
“So, he brings positive energy to the club and the group. He’s done really well.”
Is Van Dijk close to signing a new contract?
There is little question that Van Dijk is still the very best centre-back in world football.
In fact, we genuinely can’t think of anyone who comes remotely close to the Dutchman. As Slot asserts, Virgil has got it all.
| Goals | Pass Accuracy | Long Ball Accuracy | Tackles Won | Duels Won | Aerial Duels Won | |
| Premier League | 1 | 91.7% | 51.7% | 52.4% | 70.8% | 74.7% |
| Champions League | 1 | 93.7% | 65.7% | 33.3% | 71.4% | 73.3% |
While we could sit and listen to Liverpool’s No.4 take plaudits all day long, though, there is of course still the very big elephant in the room of Van Dijk’s contract situation.
It has been claimed that the feeling around Liverpool is that Van Dijk will sign an extension. However, with January now well underway, that is still yet to happen.
There does not feel to be a lot of panic from Slot over the best centre-back on the planet leaving and that is encouraging. But we’d still really love to see this all sorted before long.
