Virgil van Dijk recently hinted at a deal, but Liverpool faces a battle from Vincent Kompany’s warning

Virgil van Dijk has set a seven-year objective for Liverpool, but legends of the Premier League like John Terry and Vincent Kompany demonstrate how impossible it will be to meet.

Virgil van Dijk, a defender for Liverpool, is quickly entering the last 18 months of his contract. It’s likely that his contract will be renewed because he was given the leadership in the summer and has been playing well this season. What’s more intriguing to know is how long that delay will last.

Prior to the commencement of the 2024–25 season, Van Dijk will turn 33 years old, and Liverpool’s degree of faith in his endurance could be inferred from the duration of his next contract. He is, predictably, full of confidence; as The Athletic reports, he “looks at Thiago Silva” and “sees no reason” why he too cannot continue to play at a high level into his late 30s.

Amazingly, Silva, who is 39 years old, has participated in every Premier League game for Chelsea this season. To put things in perspective, just three other players in the top division over 35 have played more than 500 minutes thus far: Ashley Young of Everton (38, 917 minutes), Tim Ream of Fulham (36, 963 minutes), and Willian (35, 776 minutes).

Silva’s ability to play every week is noteworthy in and of itself, but it’s important to emphasize that his position is earned rather than based on renown. He was one of the few players who performed well during an appallingly bad season, earning him the title of Chelsea’s player of the year from both his teammates and the club’s supporters.

Thus, Silva will always be the standard, but Van Dijk needs to be aware that, even when it comes to the greatest of all time, he is very much the exception. Nemanja Vidić, a legend of Manchester United, retired at the age of 34 due to injuries, two years after joining Inter Milan. In contrast, Vincent Kompany struggled to stay fit and only averaged 13.25 Premier League starts throughout his final four seasons with Manchester City. He undoubtedly contributed significantly to City’s victory over Liverpool in the 2018–19 league race, but that would be his final game at the team before he returned to Anderlecht in Belgium, where he worked as a player–coach for one season before deciding to become a full-time manager. Like Vidić, he hung up his boots at 34.

Rio Ferdinand, the legend of Manchester United, lived a few more years, but he never reached the pinnacle. In 2012–13, the Scot’s final season at the club, he was a consistent starter who helped the Scot win one more title and earn himself a fresh one-year contract. But in the dismal season that followed, he only managed to start 12 league games, and when that term expired, he moved on to Queen’s Park Rangers. Ferdinand decided to hang up the boots after QPR’s 2014–15 season ended in defeat.

John Terry of Chelsea, who was 37 years old when he retired, was the oldest of the four, but like Ferdinand, he played his final season away from the team he was associated with. After playing every minute to help Chelsea win the Premier League in 2014–15, Terry, then 33, was hardly present when the Blues won the title again a few years later. After the club declined to extend his contract, he moved into coaching after spending a year in the Championship with Aston Villa.

It’s difficult enough to stay at a world-class level until your mid-30s, let alone in your late-30s as you fight to prevent injuries and overall physical deterioration that will keep you off the squad.

Therefore, Van Dijk may be able to establish himself as the greatest player the league has ever seen in his position if he can follow in Silva’s footsteps, outlast players like Terry and Kompany, and add a few more Premier League winners’ medals to his collection. By doing this, he would succeed where so many others have failed without any fault of their own. Even though the Dutchman has improved center backs’ standards around Europe, this is undoubtedly his biggest test to date.