Jamie Carragher believes Virgil van Dijk has all the tools needed to become a Liverpool great.
Van Dijk, who joined for £75million from Southampton in January, gave another towering performance at the heart of defence in Liverpool's 2-0 win at Crystal Palace on Monday evening.
And former Reds defender Carragher, speaking on Sky Sports' Monday Night Football Show, suggested after the game that the Dutchman has the ability to eventually be mentioned in the same breath as the likes of Alan Hansen at Anfield.
‘He should be disappointed if he's not alongside an Alan Hansen if people in 20 years' time when we're thinking of great Liverpool central defenders because I don't there is another centre back who can almost tick every box,' he said.
'You think of the presence, the pace, the strength, ability on the ball. Normally a player will have a couple of those and are lacking somewhere else and they'll have to cover up for that.
You'll have different strengths but he's got all of them at the moment and players like him in this team now need to be the ones, those leaders who take Liverpool to something bigger and to when they win something big.’
Van Dijk's performance also caught the eye of Carragher's fellow panellist Gary Neville, who described the ex-Southampton man as a 'monster'.
'He's a far better defender than I thought he was. The impact is far greater than I thought it was,' Neville said.
'He's a monster. He reminds me a little bit of what Jaap Stam was doing at United in terms of his level of performances [but] Jaap Stam over a few years proved it.’
Liverpool recorded an impressive 2-0 win in south London thanks to James Milner's penalty and Sadio Mane's late second. They face Brighton on Saturday looking to make it three wins out of three in the Premier League.
