Virgil van Dijk makes importance to Liverpool known as contract winds down

Virgil van Dijk is obviously a hugely important figure at Liverpool. He was transformative from the moment he walked through the door, and has been more or less ever-present (when fit) since then — but his importance might actually go beyond what meets the eye .

There are currently one or two questions about Van Dijk's future at Anfield . Along with Mohamed Salah and Trent Alexander-Arnold , he is into the final year of his Liverpool contract, and his comments after elimination from Euro 2024 sparked a little concern as well.

"I will think carefully this summer about what I want at club level and as an international player," he said, via Reuters . "Then we’ll go for it again, but first recover from this."

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Naturally, some allowances have to be made for a player who just suffered international heartbreak, at the end of what he admitted was a "long, long season". If the enthusiasm for starting all over again was lacking, that's more than understandable.

But there's no escaping that decisions from both sides will need to be made when it comes to Van Dijk's future. He is 33, after all, and Arne Slot will need to think about whether he intends to rely heavily on the Dutchman for the coming season and potentially beyond.

Slot will be making the call in conjunction with new sporting director Richard Hughes , and potentially Michael Edwards as well. They will have to weigh up the pros and cons of offering a new contract.

Van Dijk himself might have just provided another reason why Liverpool should want to keep him around. Speaking to Ben Foster for Amazon Prime , he revealed that he has been taking his mentoring role for Jarell Quansah very seriously.

"A hundred per cent [I act as mentor]," he said. "But that isn’t only because he’s young, I could also say that over the last couple of years about [Joel] Matip or about Joe Gomez or [Ibrahima] Konate.

"I’m always communicating, I’m always shouting. If you would ask them how many times I shout their names during the games, they would get sick of me! But it’s only because we have one goal: trying not to concede.

"And the organization has to be solid to get obviously the two center-halves and the No.6, that’s the defensive structure that we have. And the rest can do whatever they want and score goals.

"In this case with Jarell, I’m definitely in his ear all the time. Even outside the pitch and before training; if we have a tactical session of a game and we play against players he has never played against – he’s seen them on TV – I will definitely speak about what they’re good at, what they normally do, what they do in the game, how they approach you maybe, what they try to do to get in your head. Things like that, small bits that can help him. Anything in order to not lose the game."

Quansah could not be learning off anyone better. After a meteoric rise last season, he could even be the one to ultimately take over from Van Dijk — but in the meantime, they are working together extremely well, and Liverpool should be hesitant to break that up.

Liverpool.com says: There's no doubt that you can see a bit of Van Dijk in the way Quansah approaches the game. Some of that is physical: he is blessed with similar pace, strength and physique. But what we don't see is the work they do together behind the scenes.

Then there's the benefit of being able to play alongside Van Dijk. Would Quansah have had such a seamless rise if he hadn't had the best in the world talking him through the games? Perhaps not.

At the very least, one more year of learning off Van Dijk would be huge for Quansah, as he looks to scale those same heights. Even beyond this season, the idea of Liverpool without the Dutchman seems strange, and there should be no rush to usher the captain out of the door.