The Virgil van Dijk saga has taken yet another turn as reports from the Daily Star claim that the Dutch defender had spoken to a couple of Premier League clubs before submitting his transfer request.
Southampton have denied that they will sell the player for any amount and Van Dijk was regarded as one of Liverpool’s primary targets. But we were caught red-handed in tapping the player up and had to publish an apology before backing out of the deal for the former Celtic man.
Now the report claims that Van Dijk had spoken to Chelsea and Manchester City before lodging his transfer request and he was not give permission to do so from the club. This in itself is another case of tapping up and the Irish Independent also carries the same report, with both the Premier League clubs guilty of making contact with Van Dijk.
What would seem certain is that the Dutch defender will leave Southampton for a mammoth fee, even though the Saints claim that they will keep him and reintegrate him into the squad. The player was on strike as his transfer request was turned down and the club had even fined him for declining to play.
It is a bit of a surprise that Southampton have not acted against these clubs and it smacks of high handedness from the club which has had a great relationship with us regarding selling players to us for huge fees.
Van Dijk will want to play as much football as he can before the start of the World Cup next summer, and it will be a huge travesty if he ends up becoming another Mamadou Sakho with no game time for almost half the season.
Southampton should act smart and let the player leave for the side that pays the most money. We are ready to break our transfer record for the 26-year-old defender and the sooner we wrap it up, the better it would be for all parties involved.
This saga will drag on until the end of the window and hopefully, we can come out on top of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfGjTY_eoVk
