Liverpool shocked the world on this day in 2017.

The Reds were struggling at the back in the first half of the 2017/18 season.

So they decided to sign Virgil van Dijk from Southampton for £75m, which was a world record fee paid for a defender.

That decision has turned out to be one of their most significant in recent history.

Van Dijk almost single handedly turned their defence from a liability to a major strength.

Fast forward three years and Van Dijk is now unquestionably the best defender in the world.

His presence at the back has helped Liverpool to the Champions League in 2019 and the Premier League title earlier this year.

He was crowned the PFA Players' Player of the Year for the 2018/19.

And he nearly became the first defender since Fabio Cannavaro to win the Ballon d'Or in 2019, where he narrowly missed out to Lionel Messi.

But not everyone thought he was going to be a success.

Since it's three years since Van Dijk joined Liverpool, we've decided to look back at the negative replies when it was announced that he was signing for the club.

Fair to say that all of these have aged very badly.

My personal favourite is someone calling him a poor man's Rob Holding. He had to be joking, surely?!

Even a Liverpool fan was doubting the club's decision to pay so much for him.

Nevertheless, despite all of these being awful takes, fair play to all of those above for not deleting their tweets.

Unfortunately for both Van Dijk and Liverpool, their brilliant Dutchman is currently on the sidelines after suffering a major knee injury.

It is hoped that he will be back in action before the end of the year.

If all does go to plan, Van Dijk could be back in time to help Liverpool in their quest for Premier League and Champions League glory once again.