A first that was a long time coming

Virgil van Dijk has been a fixture of Liverpool's Champions League campaigns for the best part of a decade. So when he didn't start against LASK on Wednesday, it was the kind of thing that made you do a double take. The last time he'd been absent from the starting lineup in a meaningful Champions League fixture was the quarter-final second leg at home to Benfica back in April 2022, and even then Liverpool had a three-goal first-leg cushion to fall back on. This time, with a sore calf picked up in the weekend defeat to Manchester City, Van Dijk watched from the bench as the Reds raced into a 4-0 lead at the Raiffeisen Arena before eventually being called upon.

By his own admission, he never saw it coming. "I didn't expect to come on whatsoever," he said. "It was a surprise. I'm still recovering a bit. It had been a long time since I didn't start a game like that. I still did everything I could off the pitch to help the team. It was unusual for me but it's part of life. I think I'll be fine for Saturday."

Of the 66 appearances he has now made for Liverpool in the Champions League, all but this one came as a starter. That tells you everything about how central he has been to everything the club does at the top level.

The numbers behind the most durable defender in the league

The figures surrounding Van Dijk's availability are genuinely remarkable. Since recovering from the serious knee injury that cost him almost the entirety of the 2020/21 season, he has started 145 of Liverpool's 158 top-flight matches. He played every single minute in both the Premier League and the Champions League last season. In three of the last five campaigns, no outfield Liverpool player has logged more minutes, and that's before you factor in the 63 appearances he's made across 68 Netherlands internationals in the same period.

That is not the record of a player who coasts. It is the record of someone who has treated availability as a professional obligation. But Van Dijk turned 35 over the summer, and even he can't sustain that workload indefinitely. He remains fully committed to the Netherlands under new head coach Xavi and has no plans to step away from international football just yet, which only adds to the demands on his body.

This season, with Andoni Iraola at the helm, Liverpool have already used six different centre-back pairings across their first nine matches. That is not accident or injury chaos. That looks very much like a deliberate policy of rotation.

Life beyond Van Dijk is being planned for now

The context here matters. Van Dijk is in the final year of his contract and, as things stand, no talks have yet taken place over a possible extension. Liverpool moved early to address their defensive future by bringing Jeremy Jacquet in from Rennes for £60million even before Ibrahima Konate departed for Real Madrid on a free transfer. Jacquet has settled quickly, and his partnership with Ronald Araujo at LASK, with the on-loan defender opening the scoring, offered an early sign of what life without Van Dijk at the centre of things might look like.

With Joe Gomez also available, Iraola has genuine options to spread the load, and the Dutchman's absence from the League Cup win over Tottenham Hotspur last time out suggests this management approach is already under way. Van Dijk will still be one of the first names on the teamsheet for the biggest occasions, and his status as club captain means his influence goes well beyond the pitch. But the days of him playing every minute of every match appear to be drawing to a close.

Whether a contract extension follows this season will define the next chapter. For now, Liverpool are quietly preparing for both futures at once.