Liverpool's Future: Jacquet and Leoni After Van Dijk

At some point, Liverpool will have to confront life after Virgil van Dijk. You don’t replace a presence like that; you try to grow the next one.

Inside Anfield, eyes are already drifting toward the future, and two names keep surfacing: Jacquet and Leoni. They are not yet the pillars of a new era, but they are being quietly measured against the highest possible standard.

Former Liverpool defender Stephen Warnock knows exactly how heavy that comparison can feel. Speaking to GOAL, he didn’t dismiss the idea that the pair could one day help fill Van Dijk’s boots. He simply underlined how daunting the task really is.

“Possibly,” he said, when asked if Jacquet and Leoni could be long-term solutions. “I think the hard thing is trying to replace, obviously, a player of Van Dijk's stature.”

That’s the crux of it. Van Dijk didn’t just steady Liverpool’s defence; alongside Alisson, he completed a jigsaw. When he walked through the door, he stepped into a fully formed, elite side with a clear identity. The system suited him, the team was ready for him, and he elevated it again.

Jacquet and Leoni are stepping into something very different.

Leoni has already sparked interest after just a single outing, with positive noise drifting over from Serie A about how he handled himself in Italy. The raw materials are there, the early signs encouraging. Jacquet, too, is being spoken about as part of that next wave.

But this is where the pressure starts to bite.

“There will be more talk, talking about Van Dijk and can they be the heir to the throne, of taking over Van Dijk?” Warnock said. That narrative will cling to them with every appearance, every mistake, every dominant performance. The question won’t go away; it will only get louder.

For a centre-half, the real education comes a little later. Warnock pointed to those mid‑20s years – 26, 27 – when the game finally starts to slow down in your head, when you see danger two passes earlier and position yourself without thinking.

“And that's essentially what you have to do when you're a centre-half,” he explained. “You've got to read the game better, you've got to get yourself in better positions, and that's part of the process.”

Liverpool’s hope is that Jacquet and Leoni can travel that path without being crushed by expectation. The trajectory, for now, looks right. They are moving in the correct direction, learning, adapting, growing into the shirt.

But the road from promise to dominance is littered with stories that never quite reached their destination.

Warnock didn’t shy away from that reality. Injuries can derail a career in a heartbeat. Form can vanish. Confidence can drain away when the scrutiny sharpens and the shirt suddenly feels “too heavy”. The state of the club itself matters: the stability of the dressing room, the clarity of the tactical plan, the quality around you.

“When you think about when Virgil van Dijk came into the Liverpool team, it was almost him and Alisson that were the final two pieces of the jigsaw. And it slotted him perfectly into a great system, a great team,” Warnock said.

That luxury doesn’t exist now. Liverpool are in what he called a “transitional phase”, trying to reshape a side that once looked untouchable. That kind of environment can forge leaders, but it can also expose them.

For Jacquet and Leoni, that’s the challenge. They’re not being asked to copy Van Dijk. They’re being asked to grow into defenders who can one day carry similar responsibility, under very different circumstances.

The question isn’t just whether they can succeed him.

It’s whether they can do it while helping to build the next great Liverpool team from the ground up.