At Anfield, every centre-half now walks in Virgil van Dijk’s shadow. The armband, the aura, the authority – replacing that is not a transfer, it’s a process. And for Andrew Warnock, two names sit on that long-term drawing board: Jacquet and Leoni.
The former Liverpool defender, speaking to GOAL, didn’t dress it up. Asked if the pair could ultimately help fill Van Dijk’s boots, he paused on the scale of the task.
“Possibly,” he said. One word, loaded. Because this is not about finding a like-for-like clone. It’s about whether two promising defenders can grow into a role that has defined an era.
Warnock pointed to Leoni’s early impact and reputation. One game in red, but years of work in Serie A behind him.
“The signs were promising, both from Leoni, even after one game, but the talk around Serie A and how he performed in Italy,” Warnock noted. The noise is already there. The expectations will only get louder.
That, he stressed, is where the real test begins. Once a defender reaches a certain level, the scrutiny never stops. Every header, every duel, every misstep is measured against the benchmark: Van Dijk.
“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. The throne analogy is no exaggeration. Van Dijk didn’t just organise a back line; he changed the entire feel of Liverpool’s defence.
For Jacquet and Leoni, the key stretch is still ahead. Warnock framed it as a journey through their mid-20s, the years when defenders usually harden and sharpen.
“It’s just about how they progress from now until probably around about 26, 27, when you learn so much about the game and you get better at understanding,” he explained.
That learning curve is brutal for a centre-half. You don’t just tackle and head clear. You anticipate. You move early. You live in the spaces where danger might appear, not where it already is.
“And that's essentially what you have to do when you're a centre-half. You've got to read the game better, you've got to get yourself in better positions, and that's part of the process,” Warnock said.
He refused to anoint either player as a guaranteed successor. Right trajectory, yes. Destiny, no.
“So it's very difficult to say whether they're going to be the successors because they're on the right trajectory. But there's so many things that can come into place, like injuries and lack of form, the shirt being too heavy at times, where the club's actually at.”
That phrase – “the shirt being too heavy” – lingers. Some players grow inside it. Others shrink. For Van Dijk, the timing and the environment were perfect.
“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,” Warnock recalled. “And it slotted him perfectly into a great system, a great team.”
Van Dijk walked into a side ready to win. A manager in full flow. A structure built to protect and amplify his strengths. His arrival didn’t just improve Liverpool – it completed them.
Jacquet and Leoni step into something very different.
“At the moment, Liverpool are in a transitional phase and that's difficult to play in at times,” Warnock said.
That’s the reality. They are not joining a finished masterpiece; they are being asked to help sketch the next version. Mistakes will be more visible. The safety net, thinner. The comparisons, relentless.
Liverpool know they cannot clone Van Dijk. What they can do is nurture the next leaders of their back line and hope that, over time, one of them grows into that same commanding role.
The question now is not whether Jacquet and Leoni look the part after a game or two. It’s whether, when they hit those crucial years at 26 and 27, they are still standing, still learning, and still strong enough to carry a shirt that never really gets any lighter.
