For many inside Dutch football, the Liverpool skipper had an underwhelming Euros campaign with Holland.
Local pundit Valentijn Dreissen says Van Dijk should now be put out for pasture, along with other Oranje veterans, for the 2026 World Cup qualifying campaign.
Dreissen wrote for De Telegraaf: “Anyone who listened to our country after the elimination heard everywhere that the Dutch team was hardly worth watching.
“The criticism of Memphis Depay who did not deliver was particularly harsh and Koeman also had to pay the price. Because he stood up for Depay and the old men with Virgil van Dijk, Daley Blind and Georginio Wijnaldum.
“Koeman must shed the apples of his eye, the thirty-somethings on whom he put his money on in vain in Germany, such as Van Dijk, Depay, Wijnaldum, Blind and also De Vrij.
“From his own experience of the 1994 World Cup in America, the national coach knows how fit you need to be.
“Then Ruud Gullit and Marco van Basten dropped out, Frank Rijkaard literally went through the motions and Jan Wouters and Koeman themselves could no longer cope. With a transition there will also be a different hierarchy at Oranje. And after eight years, it is high time to straighten out what was stuck under Koeman.”