The dust hasn’t settled on the Virgil van Dijk transfer fiasco yet but we are already planning to get another Dutchman playing for us next season.
Calciomercato.com claims that the Lazio defender Stefan de Vrij will not be playing at Lazio next season as he spoke with the club bosses and wants a move away. The 25-year-old has one year left on his current deal and that seems to have set off a few clubs looking to sign a talented defender on the cheap.
The Italian outlet also claims that Liverpool made contact with the representatives of the player and that Jurgen Klopp is a fan of the defender.
That statement above should give us the chills as it sounds similar to what we have done with Van Dijk. De Vrij was also seen as a player that Antonio Conte wanted at Chelsea but couldn’t sign him a year ago.
A battle lies ahead for De Vrij
Unsurprisingly, any quality player that wants to leave an Italian side is linked with Juventus and the Italian champions see the 25-year-old as an alternative to Paris Saint-Germain defender Marquinhos.
Lazio also want a rather low fee of just €25 million for their defender and he would certainly be cheaper than any quality defender from the Premier League, especially Van Dijk.
There are concerns about his injury record as he played only two Serie A games in the 2015-16 season but that didn’t stop him from representing his team in 27 league games last season.
While we recover from the blow of not signing the Southampton defender, it could turn out to be a blessing in disguise.
De Vrij isn’t a poor defender by any means and was one of the best players in Italy last season. Lazio too had a pretty good season as they finished fifth in the standings.
The Kop Times Verdict
It will be difficult to battle Juventus should they actually bid for the Dutch defender but De Vrij’s current club might prefer to sell him to a club outside Italy and not strengthen their rivals.
We do need someone who can shore up the defence and De Vrij can turn out to be a great player as he still is young and has a lot of potential. But we have seen how quickly things go wrong and shouldn’t be sure about anything until it is official.
