Speaking on talkSPORT radio, former Chelsea defender Jason Cundy said: "Virgil van Dijk was lauded as one of the greatest centre-halves that the Premier League has ever seen — poppycock. He's not and I'll tell you why he's not.
"It's because it comes down to longevity. If you look at Rio Ferdinand and John Terry who over a number of years won multiple Premier Leagues, won Champions League titles and won FA Cups. The pair of them won the lot.
"Van Dijk is a brilliant centre-half, but overrated at Liverpool. If you did a best XI at Liverpool ever, he's not in there. There's no doubting how good he was, but right now let's call it as it is, Van Dijk is an absolute shadow of the player he was.
“He's getting overlooked because he's happy to blame Trent Alexander-Arnold. The mainstay right now is Van Dijk and he's nowhere near it. Against Napoli he lunges in and makes a challenge that he doesn't have to make.
"I never saw Terry make decisions like that or have a bad run like this. Ferdinand, I never saw it. The drop-off from him being the greatest centre-half that the world has ever seen to now is colossal. I want Liverpool fans to see it and say it."
Van Dijk has been frequently compared to the likes of Ferdinand and Terry who are widely considered to be the greatest centre-backs of the Premier League era, despite winning just one top-flight title at Liverpool so far.
The 30-year-old Dutch defender has been going through a poor run of form so far in 2022/23 with Jurgen Klopp's men sitting in seventh place in the table (one point behind Chelsea in sixth place).
