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Jamie Carragher speaking on Super Sunday(Image: Sky Sports)

Jamie Carragher believes Virgil van Dijk is the one player Liverpool must keep this summer more than any of his other teammates.

Van Dijk is one of the three first-team regulars in the final few months of their current contracts, alongside Mohamed Salah and Trent Alexander-Arnold.

During the Super Sunday coverage on Sky Sports before the Reds play Manchester City, they highlighted Van Dijk starting at least 30 of the team's Premier League matches in all but one of his seven full seasons since signing for Liverpool.

The only aberration was when he only made five during the 2020/21 campaign due to sustaining a season-ending anterior cruciate ligament injury in October 2020.

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In response, Carragher said: "Before he came, Liverpool - when I was a player and maybe just after I'd left - would maybe have a title challenge every five years; that's what the numbers told you.

"A new manager would come in, and he'd build up to trying to compete for the title, and we didn't win it.

"But when you look at those seasons and the games he played, so the one where he does his cruciate, Liverpool don't compete for the title; every other season there, bar one, Liverpool compete for the biggest prizes.

"And the one season they didn't was the season I think the World Cup was in the middle of the season.

"I think Virgil van Dijk had played more football than any player in Europe, and he wasn't just quite himself.

"So that shows the transformation he's had on the football club.

"There's been other great players, of course, you know, the goalkeeper [Alisson], Mo Salah.

"But when we get, maybe, talking about contracts, and that will heat up again over the next few weeks and months.

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"For me, he's the one I feel needs to be at Liverpool next season more than anybody."


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