Who Comes After Virgil van Dijk at Liverpool?
At Anfield, the question hangs in the air: who comes after Virgil van Dijk?
Inside Liverpool, plans are already being sketched out. Two names keep surfacing — Jacquet and Leoni. They are being quietly, and sometimes not so quietly, spoken about as potential heirs to the Dutchman’s throne at the heart of the defence.
Former Liverpool defender Stephen Warnock understands the scale of that conversation. Speaking to GOAL, he didn’t dress it up.
“Possibly,” he said when asked if Jacquet and Leoni could one day fill Van Dijk’s boots. “I think the hard thing is trying to replace, obviously, a player of Van Dijk's stature.”
That’s the crux. You don’t just swap out Virgil van Dijk. You attempt to grow into that role.
Warnock has seen enough early signs to at least keep the debate alive. Leoni, he pointed out, has barely pulled on the Liverpool shirt, yet the noise around his performances in Serie A has already followed him to Merseyside.
“The signs were promising, both from Leoni, even after one game, but the talk around Serie A and how he performed in Italy,” Warnock said. The reputation arrives before the body of work. The pressure arrives with it.
And that pressure will only build. Once a defender reaches a certain level, the comparisons become relentless. Every tackle, every aerial duel, every mistake is weighed against the benchmark Van Dijk has set.
“There will be more talk, talking about Van Dijk and can they be the heir to the throne, of taking over Van Dijk?” Warnock continued. For Jacquet and Leoni, the challenge is less about noise and more about growth. “It's just about how they progress from now until probably around about 26, 27, when you learn so much about the game and you get better at understanding.”
Those years shape a centre-half. The body is still strong, but the mind starts to run the show. Positioning sharpens. Decision-making quickens. The chaos of defending becomes a pattern you can read.
“And that's essentially what you have to do when you're a centre-half,” Warnock said. “You've got to read the game better, you've got to get yourself in better positions, and that's part of the process.”
He stopped short of crowning either man as a guaranteed successor. Right trajectory, yes. Certainty, no.
“So it's very difficult to say whether they're going to be the successors because they're on the right trajectory. But there's so many things that can come into place, like injuries and lack of form, the shirt being too heavy at times, where the club's actually at.”
That “shirt being too heavy” line matters. Playing centre-back for Liverpool is not just about defending space and winning duels. It’s about carrying expectation, history, and the scrutiny that comes with both. Some grow under that weight. Others shrink.
Warnock also pointed to timing. Van Dijk didn’t walk into a project still being built. He walked into one that was almost complete.
“When you think about when Virgil van Dijk came into the Liverpool team, it was almost him and Alisson that were the final two pieces of the jigsaw,” he said. “And it slotted him perfectly into a great system, a great team.”
The platform was ready. The defence needed a leader, the dressing room needed that final jolt of authority, and Van Dijk delivered it inside a structure already humming under Jürgen Klopp.
Jacquet and Leoni won’t get that luxury. Not yet.
“At the moment, Liverpool are in a transitional phase and that's difficult to play in at times,” Warnock admitted.
This is the backdrop to their challenge: a squad evolving, a style subtly shifting, expectations refusing to budge. Somewhere in that turbulence, two young defenders are being asked if they can grow into the role once occupied by one of the club’s modern greats.
Liverpool don’t just need the next Van Dijk. They need Jacquet and Leoni to become the best versions of themselves — and to do it while the club reshapes around them.
