Arne Slot explains how Liverpool already have their Virgil van Dijk succession plan in place | OneFootball

Arne Slot has claimed that Liverpool are ‘not stupid’ and are already laying the foundations for life after Virgil van Dijk at Anfield.

The legendary Reds captain will be on the cusp of his 36th birthday when his current contract ends in June 2027, by which stage an exit from Merseyside would seem plausible for a player who’ll have been at the club for almost a decade and is currently earning £350,000 per week (Capology).

LFC chiefs appeared to indulge in widespread future-proofing over the past month in particular by signing no fewer than four young centre-backs. The high-profile addition of Jeremy Jacquet came after the acquisitions of Ifeanyi Ndukwe, Mor Talla Ndiaye and Noah Adekoya, who’ll likely cut their teeth in the under-21 setup first.

Slot: Liverpool are already planning for life after Van Dijk

In the wake of those transactions, Slot was asked at his press conference on Thursday morning about Liverpool’s long-term succession plan for Van Dijk, and the head coach addressed the reality that the current captain won’t be around forever.

He said (via Liverpool Echo): “We never panic. It’s always long-term and thought about for a long time and not by just one person. We know Virgil won’t play for 10 more years but he has a year left – maybe longer – at us. He stays fit and what a compliment that is to him he can play every three days.

“Hopefully he can stay fit for multiple years but this club is not stupid. We do know somewhere in the upcoming years there is life after Virgil but that is for every position. We don’t think about the short-term only, it is mid to long as well.”

(Photo by Jan Kruger/Getty Images)

Liverpool set for major centre-back change in next two years

Liverpool had already began planning for life after Van Dijk last summer when they snapped up Giovanni Leoni, only to lose the Italian to a devastating ACL injury on his senior Reds debut in the opening weeks of the season.

However, should he return to action next autumn (as currently projected by Premier Injuries), he could yet blossom into a tremendous first-team talent for ther 2026/27 campaign.

The clear intention is that he and Jacquet will go on to form a commanding centre-back partnership in the same way that our captain and Ibrahima Konate have done over the past five years, with the likes of Ndukwe, Ndiaye and Adekoya hopefully also challenging for regular first-team action in the long-term.

Even though Van Dijk has shipped some criticism of his performances this season amid a few uncharacteristic lapses, his legendary status is beyond dispute, and his presence will be massively missed whenever he does move on from Liverpool.

It’s more than conceivable that he and Konate will have both departed by the summer of 2027, and a major changing of the centre-back guard awaits at Anfield. FSG have recognised that with their transfer activity over the past month, even if the fruits of that labour mightn’t be borne for some time yet.

You can watch Slot’s full pre-Manchester City press conference below, via Empire of the Kop on YouTube: