Liverpool have named Virgil van Dijk as their new club captain following the departure of Jordan Henderson.
The Reds had been looking for a skipper after the midfielder joined Saudi Pro League side Al-Ettifaq for around £13million last Thursday. Jurgen Klopp revealed before the 4-0 pre-season win over Leicester that he had made his decision but needed to tell his players first.
Now, it has been confirmed that Van Dijk will take up the position ahead of the 2023/24 campaign. The Dutchman has previously wore the captain’s armband in Henderson’s absence, but will now have the responsibility on a full-time basis, with Trent Alexander-Arnold chosen as the Reds’ vice-captain.
Speaking during Liverpool’s pre-season tour in Singapore, Van Dijk said : “[It’s] a really proud day for me, for my wife, for my kids, my family. It’s been a special feeling and I can’t really describe it at this point. But it’s something that I’m really, really proud of”.
“Obviously I’m captain of Holland, that was already such a huge honour, a proud moment as well. But also to be the captain of Liverpool Football Club is something that I can’t describe at this point”.
“It’s just something that makes me very proud and I will do everything in my power and what I can do to make everyone proud and happy with me and the football club.”
Van Dijk has been a mainstay in the Liverpool side ever since he made the £75m move from Southampton in January 2018, clocking up 222 appearances in the process. He was part of the Reds team that won the Champions League in 2019, before helping them to the Premier League title the following year.
The Netherlands international would no doubt have played more matches if he didn’t sustain that horrific Anterior Cruciate Ligament injury against Everton, which ruled him out for over eight months. Van Dijk returned for the start of the 2021/22 season and has been an ever-present in the past two years.
Last season proved to be Van Dijk and Liverpool’s toughest on the pitch during his time at the club, however, as they finished fifth and missed out on Champions League football. “It has been a very disappointing year last year,” Van Dijk added. “It was actually not a bad run-in. Obviously in the end we didn’t achieve anything we hoped to achieve and that was very disappointing.
“Then you’re going on a very short summer holiday and you reflect on the season you’ve had, personally and as a team, and it hurts. It hurts a lot. You have pride as a human being and you feel like you could have done a lot better, you could have done a lot more consistently.
“I think that was a big thing that was missing: the consistent level that we showed over the last couple of years was missing. And obviously everyone wants to make this right. We all feel we have to do this together again each and every day, each and every game, with the fans as well.”
As for Alexander-Arnold, he will support Van Dijk as Liverpool’s new vice-captain. The 24-year-old, alongside Van Dijk, has been one of the Reds’ most consistent performers over the past half a decade, recording 273 appearances for his boyhood club and winning every major honour available to him.