Our plans to sign Virgil van Dijk from Southampton seems to have hit a major snag as the club are set to report Liverpool to the Premier League for an illegal approach to sign the defender.

The Telegraph carries the report where it claims that the Saints don’t want to sell their defender and have not received any offer or approach from the Merseyside club for the club captain.

Even though Van Dijk wants to play under Jurgen Klopp, a reason why he chose Liverpool over Manchester City and Chelsea, the Saints are still going to report the Reds to the Premier League.

Van Dijk does have a contract at the club till 2022 and his fee is estimated to be between £50 million or £60 million, which would make him the most expensive Liverpool player in history.

Southampton believe that we have crossed a line in our attempts to sign the Dutch defender but there hasn’t been any real quotes or informal approaches from the club to bring the player to Anfield.

Yes, transfers don’t always follow the right route of contacting the club first and then the player but this is just a tough stance taken by a club that wants to get the most for their prized asset. The report also claims that the stance of the three-man board at the Saints is that Van Dijk will not be sold.

A desperate move to hold onto a player

The move does seem a little desperate especially when we haven’t really done anything unlawful. It is Van Dijk who seems to be pushing for the move and this can be seen as one last attempt at keeping him and trying to sell him to another club for the maximum amount.

This also reminds us of the Saido Berahino incident when the English striker was not allowed to leave West Brom and that hurt his football and even hurt the Baggies as they couldn’t sell him for a huge amount.

Van Dijk will leave the Saints sooner rather than later and this move is just stalling the inevitable for a couple of weeks at the most.