As a delighted Virgil van Dijk sat in the dressing room at Wembley after leading Liverpool to victory in his first final as club captain, he turned to the camera and said, smiling, "They thought I was finished!"
Van Dijk's pride in his match-winning performance against Chelsea was understandable, but it was a slight exaggeration on his part. Not even Van Dijk's harshest critics ever felt he was finished. There had been, however, genuine fears that the Dutchman was in decline.
For arguably the first time in his top-flight career, there was an unmistakable air of vulnerability about Van Dijk during Liverpool's trying 2022-23 campaign. He had returned from a horrific knee injury to play a pivotal role in Liverpool's quadruple bid of 2021-22 but there were games last season in which the "monster" no longer seemed so terrifying to opponents. He was being tormented by the likes of Aleksandar Mitrovic and Gabriel Jesus.
"There was a time, maybe before his injury, where you wouldn't even see players take him on," former Manchester United right-back Gary Neville said on Sky Sports in August 2022. "They would refuse and just pass the ball. They are now starting to have a go, thinking 'I have a chance here.'"
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