Another day, another Liverpool contract story to stomach. But in this case, Virgil van Dijk has already given a helpful response.
In fairness, Liverpool only has itself to blame for ending up in this position. By allowing the contracts of Van Dijk, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Mohamed Salah to enter their final few months, the club has effectively doomed itself to the constant media cycle until a resolution is found.
With Liverpool also out of the Champions League now, and with the Carabao Cup final in the past as well, there will be precious little else to talk about for the remainder of the season. Unless you count the march toward a 20th league title in Arne Slot’s debut season, of course, although somehow people do seem to be disregarding that.
Perhaps it has something to do with the size of the gap at the top of the Premier League table. For as long as Liverpool is processing to glory, it’s more interesting for the wider media to talk about the contracts.
And of course, the international break has sent transfer rumors into overdrive, as it always does. It’s amid this perfect storm that Fichajes has declared that Van Dijk has made up his mind, and will be leaving Liverpool at the end of his contract.
PSG is said to be leading the race for his services. But wherever he ends up, it apparently will not be Anfield, with the captain fed up by a perceived lack of recent success. Again, this has the curious feature of disregarding Liverpool’s incoming potential title. But more importantly, Van Dijk has already told us what to make of reports like this.
“At the moment, I don’t even know what will happen next year,” Van Dijk said after Liverpool exited the Champions League. “If anyone says they do know, they are lying to your face.”
(Image: Ryan Crockett/DeFodi Images via Getty Images)
Case closed, then. Unless there have been significant developments since Van Dijk made this statement, we should take all reports on his future with an absolute truckload of salt.
And it would be strange if the situation had altered drastically since then. After all, the report suggests that the Champions League defeat played a big part in Van Dijk’s thinking, but his comments came after that loss had already taken place.
The Carabao Cup final defeat was certainly disappointing, but it’s ludicrous to think that alone would have settled things for Van Dijk. The default position — and this comes from the horse’s mouth — is that the Liverpool captain’s future remains unresolved.
“I still have no idea at the moment,” Van Dijk elaborated. “Genuinely, I have no idea. It is not on hold. Nothing is on hold. I keep saying the same thing, there are 10 games to go [now nine] and that is my full focus. If there is news, you guys will know it. I don’t even know myself. Everyone knows there are some conversations behind the scenes, but that is about it.”
Unlike Alexander-Arnold, who has left everyone guessing, Van Dijk has regularly fronted up to questions about his future. There is a sense that when something does happen, Liverpool fans will not be left in the dark for too long — so until the captain says differently, nothing is decided.
