The Dutchman was made the world’s most expensive defender and Liverpool’s record-signing when he made the £75million switch from Southampton in January.
Van Dijk has transformed Jurgen Klopp’s leaky defence into the tightest backline in the Premier League.
The Reds have conceded just seven goals at the halfway mark of the season and are therefore on track to beat Chelsea’s record of just 15 in the 2004/05 season.
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Liverpool’s swoop for Van Dijk was initially thwarted after the Saints claimed that they had made an illegal approach for the player.
The Reds were then forced to release a statement ending their interest.
But they came back in for him in December and closed to deal discreetly after Southampton changed their stance, he joined up with his new club on January 1.
There had been three other central defenders on the radar though should the deal have gone dead.
According to the Times, the Reds had been tracking 34 different centre backs and had scouts monitoring their performances in over 15 games.
That was then condensed into four ‘A grade’ targets, high quality players who fit the bill.
Also on the shortlist were four ‘B grade’ defenders, who were young players likely to develop into ‘A grade’ stars.
One of the candidates on the ‘A’ list is now going toe-to-toe with Liverpool in the title race.
Aymeric Laporte was snapped up by Manchester City in the January transfer window for £57m from Athletic Club.
The other two candidates besides Van Dijk – who was top priority – were Napoli’s Kalidou Koulibaly and Bayern Munich’s Jerome Boateng.
The former Celtic man bagged his first Premier League goal against Wolves recently and has now revealed that scoring is the main area he wants to improve on.
“I was very happy to get my second goal for the club at Wolves last week, but scoring more is something I can definitely get better at,” Van Dijk told Liverpool’s official website.
“It’s not in my head, though; it’s not like I am thinking ‘I need to score more goals!’ all the time.
“I know I can improve, improve on certain things, and definitely in attacking, scoring from set-pieces, or be more dangerous.”