As Van Dijk made clear, the journey ahead is not about individual accolades. It’s about pulling together in pursuit of more silverware. Slot’s Liverpool are no longer outsiders or chasing shadows.

On Wednesday evening, the Reds announced that they had reached an agreement to sign Eintracht Frankfurt’s Ekitike, 23, on the back of the striker’s eye-catching season in Bundesliga football.

Van Dijk has not had to deal with an Alan Shearer-type, a human cyclone who would wear his opponent down, going one-to-one, testing them physically as much as technically.

Virgil van Dijk remains a towering presence at the heart of Liverpool’s defence, both literally and figuratively. We spoke to Will Rooney to discuss van Dijk’s continued importance to the ...