Virgil van Dijk is quite possibly the best signing Liverpool have made in the last few seasons.

The impact that the Dutch defender has made since arriving at the club has been extraordinary.

Before his signing in January, Liverpool had been known for having an extremely shaky defence.

But, his presence means that the Reds no longer have to rely on their attack to win them games.

Liverpool have the joint best defence in the Premier League at the moment, having conceded just five goals in 13 games.

Van Dijk has been pivotal in their impressive record and he has been widely praised for his performances in a Red shirt.

Many think he has now established himself as one of the best defenders in world football, let alone the Premier League.

That is an opinion shared by Jamie Carragher.

Carragher has dedicated his latest column for the Telegraph to Van Dijk, and it's fair to say he's been very complimentary.

The former centre-back said that Van Dijk will go down as a legend if the club starts winning trophies and he carries on his form.

He then went on to describe him as 'the best defender in English football' and that he wouldn't swap him for any centre-back in world football.

And he also recalled the exact moment he realised Van Dijk was 'special'.

It actually came when Van Dijk was playing against Liverpool for Southampton back in 2016.

He wrote: "The first time I saw Van Dijk and thought he was special was in a game against Liverpool, a 0-0 draw in which he not only caught the speeding Sadio Mane but completed a perfectly timed tackle to stop a certain goal."

And you can watch that clip below:

And here at 0:21:

To be fair, that is seriously impressive.

Catching up with Mane is no easy task, but Van Dijk did it with ease.

He then put in a world-class challenge to prevent him from opening the scoring.

Van Dijk was clearly one of the best Premier League defenders at that point and he's only gone from strength to strength ever since.