Michael Edwards has agreed a return to Liverpool. That’s a hugely exciting development, with the former sporting director perhaps second only to Jürgen Klopp (and the players, of course) in terms of responsibility for the success at Anfield over the last decade.
Edwards will return in an overarching role as head of football operations, handed oversight of Liverpool without specifically returning to Anfield. According to The Times, he is likely to hire Richard Hughes, currently at Bournemouth, to take his old job.
This is rightly being hailed in all quarters as a smart move from FSG, with Edwards widely regarded as best-in-class. But there is a nagging thought in the back of a few minds: what might this mean for Virgil van Dijk?
Signed from Southampton in January 2018, Van Dijk is one of Edwards’ biggest success stories. But ironically, it has been speculated that his return to the club could cast doubt over the future of the Liverpool captain.
That’s because Van Dijk turns 33 in the summer. Edwards has a reputation for favoring younger players; The Telegraph has reported that there were ‘robust discussions’ over long contracts for aging stars in the latter years of his first stint with Liverpool, with the emergence of Klopp as ‘the most powerful voice’ a point of contention.
Yet this does not inevitably mean that Van Dijk will only be at Liverpool for one more year. People should not leap to put two and two together just because Edwards is on his way back.
First and foremost, it’s important to stress that Edwards is not returning to Liverpool as sporting director. He is being granted general oversight over footballing operations, but it’s not clear whether granular contract renewal decisions will lie directly with him.
Certainly, Edwards and prospective sporting director Hughes are considered close allies, and it’s likely that they would share a similar philosophy towards squad-building and how to handle contracts for older players. But this is a brand new footballing structure for Liverpool, and the intricacies of who makes the final call on specific decisions are not yet known.
More importantly, though, even if Van Dijk’s future were entirely in the hands of Edwards, it would be completely wrong to suggest that the Dutchman’s hopes of a new contract are up in smoke. He has every chance of extending his Liverpool deal.
After all, Edwards has built a reputation as one of the smartest football operators out there. The pertinent question is therefore a simple one: would it be a smart footballing move to get rid of perhaps the best center-back in the world?
Naturally, Edwards and co will need to weigh up whether Van Dijk is likely to still hold that status in a year’s time, or indeed a little further down the line. That delicate arithmetic will help determine whether it is sensible to put a new contract on the table — and if so, what length should be on offer.
But unlike in previous cases where renewals have been offered, supposedly against the wishes of Edwards, there are no obvious telltale signs of decline. Indeed, Van Dijk remains firmly best in class: he has by far the highest aerial duel win percentage among qualifying players (those who have contested a non-negligible amount) in the Premier League, winning 84.3 per cent of his battles. The next-best player in the entire division is back on 76.3 per cent — and happens to be Joe Gomez.
Van Dijk holds up in plenty of other metrics, too. Unsurprisingly, his quarterback-like passing is unaffected by age, but his defensive numbers remain strong as well. He is losing just 0.24 challenges per 90 minutes, less than one every four games, ranking him in the 93rd percentile among positional peers in the big five leagues over the last year.
