FeatureIn numbers: Virgil van Dijk's seven years at Liverpool

Having agreed and announced a deal with Southampton to sign the Netherlands international shortly after Christmas 2017, he sealed the formalities of the switch on January 1, 2018.

It has been quite a ride since, with Van Dijk an imperious and important figure in multiple successes since and now serving as the Reds’ captain.

On the anniversary of his arrival, we have pored through the facts and figures of his spell on Merseyside so far to pick out some of the most interesting statistics…

294 – appearances Van Dijk has tallied for the Reds to date, with 215 of those coming in league football. The defender is on the verge of becoming the 65th player in Liverpool history to reach the threshold of 300 games for the club – and the first ever Dutchman to do so.

6,805 – minutes the No.4 played of a possible 6,840 across the Premier League campaigns of 2018-19 and 2019-20 as Liverpool finished runners-up with 97 points and then were crowned champions with 99 in the latter season. He started all 76 fixtures.

206 – overall victories Van Dijk has been part of in his 294 appearances for the Reds so far, for a win rate of 70 per cent. He reached the landmark of 200 wins excluding penalty shootouts on his 290th appearance, against Girona in December – the fastest any player has ever done so in LFC history.

25 – goals he has scored during his time at the club, including 19 in the Premier League, three in the Champions League, two in the Emirates FA Cup and one in the League Cup, which was of course the winner in last season’s Wembley final against Chelsea.

112 – times Van Dijk has captained Liverpool to date. Having deputised for previous skipper Jordan Henderson on multiple occasions, Van Dijk was installed as club captain in his own right following the departures of Henderson and vice-captain James Milner during the summer of 2023.

7 – major trophies the centre-back has lifted since joining the Reds. Champions League glory in Madrid in 2019 was followed by UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup successes that same year. The Premier League title was secured in 2020 and he has subsequently won the FA Cup once and Carabao Cup twice.

4 – times each Van Dijk has been named in the PFA Premier League Team of the Year (2018-19, 2019-20, 2021-22 and 2023-24) and the FIFPRO Men’s World11 (2019, 2020, 2022 and 2024), while he also received the PFA Men’s Players’ Player of the Year award in 2018-19.

84 – minutes into his Reds debut Van Dijk scored his first goal. The headed finish at the Kop end from a corner handed his new team a memorable 2-1 victory over neighbours Everton in the FA Cup third round.

302 – days Van Dijk was sidelined competitively after sustaining a serious knee injury at Goodison Park in October 2020. Following his return in August 2021, he went on to play the most matches in a single season of his Liverpool career to date (51).

16 – appearances against each of Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City make those clubs Van Dijk’s most frequent opponents at Liverpool so far. Manchester United are next-highest (13).

70 – Anfield league appearances without defeat was the phenomenal personal streak the defender totalled following his switch from Southampton. Van Dijk’s record stood until October 2022, when Leeds United claimed a late 2-1 result at the Reds’ home.

16,155 – passes Van Dijk has played in the Premier League since the beginning of the 2018-19 season, accumulating the most within the Liverpool squad in each campaign aside from the injury-disrupted 2020-21 and the highest figure across the whole division during 2019-20 and so far in 2024-25.

92 – Premier League clean sheets the No.4 has contributed to for the Reds, with his personal best the 21 shutouts he was part of throughout 2021-22. There were also double-figure tallies in 2018-19 (20), 2019-20 (15) and 2022-23 (11), and there have been eight so far in the current campaign.