The best in the WORLD has chosen Liverpool

The best in the world has chosen to play for Liverpool. How often have we been able to say that?

Liverpool celebrated this week as Virgil van Dijk officially signed a new contract with the club. The captain's deal had been set to expire at the end of the season.

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It wasn't a clear-cut one, either. Van Dijk turns 34 in the summer - an age at which most players struggle to compete at the elite level.

Liverpool have ultimately decided that he can maintain his best form and perform with the best of them. For the next two years, anyway.

It's a similar story to that of Mo Salah, of course. The Egyptian signed his new deal the week prior to Van Dijk, locking the pair of them in for another couple of years.

Time will tell if that was the right decision but what isn't up for debate is that the world's best just committed the rest of his peak to Liverpool. And that's worth shouting about.

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Van Dijk chooses Liverpool

Van Dijk had his pick of clubs this summer. He could have found terms with any club in the world, such has been his form this season.

That's because Van Dijk is the best defender in the world and has been for some time. His form dipped post-knee injury but once he recaptured his best a couple of year ago, he's sat at the top of the pile once again.

He's a certainty for the PFA Team of the Season, data sites Fotmob and WhoScored both rank him as the highest-rated defender in the Premier League this season, he's been at the back of a (surely) title-winning team, and pretty much all data points to him being the standard-bearer.

It's something backed up by everyone who talks about Van Dijk. The best of his generation and the standout defender on the planet. The one everyone is now compared to.

Van Dijk is the best in the world and the fact he completely chose to remain at Liverpool is magnificent. It's not something that happened pre-Jurgen Klopp.

In fact, the only comparable instances over the last 30 years are Mo Salah, Alisson Becker and Steven Gerrard. Everyone else in that bracket has moved elsewhere when given the chance.

Thank God, for Van Dijk, then. He remains at Liverpool for two more years where he will be the centrepiece of the defence - the one the club builds around as they prepare for another generation.

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Ultimately, Liverpool will have to replace Van Dijk at some stage but right now it's an impossible challenge that they won't have to take on. And they can thank the Dutchman for that - he didn't have to stay.