Virgil van Dijk will be following in the footsteps of one of his childhood heroes on Sunday, and the respect between the pair is mutual. “I’d keep it Dutch, I’d play alongside Virgil van Dijk,” he explained. “It would be a good partnership. They think he needs to do more, especially when the team is not playing well, that he needs to be the player to tell them what to do and put them in position so they can make a difference.

“They say he’s not doing that and I find that hard to see that on the pitch, from the television. “Growing up as a young defender watching the national team, Jaap Stam was ‘The Rock’,” he said. “He was always there, he was intimidating, when you looked at him on TV it felt like he was almost three metres tall! And he’d run through a brick wall and still be fine.

It would have been a pleasure to play with him. “You think of the history of the club, the results, the games that they’ve played and the successes that both clubs have had in the history of football. It won’t be any different on Sunday, it will be a tough one again, but we’ll give it everything we have and see what we can get out of it.”

*Watch the full exclusive interview with Virgil van Dijk here*

*Virgil van Dijk is an ambassador for Expedia. His Liverpool travel guide and the Finding Liverpool content series are on Expedia Live*