Virgil van Dijk’s hopes of making a switch to Anfield in January, or even in the future, seem remote after reports from various bookies claim that Southampton do not want to sell the Dutch defender to us.

The former Celtic man was the one central defender that Jurgen Klopp had earmarked in the summer but we botched it up by trying to tap him up and Southampton reported us to the Premier League. Even after a lot of reports suggesting that we would be signing Van Dijk on deadline day, nothing materialised and Van Dijk was left to train with the reserves.

The 26-year-old has finally been able to make it to the first-team but has been left on the bench for most of the games.

Now, betting experts Paddy Power (h/t The Gambling Times) claim that Southampton will not sell their star defender to us, no matter what.

“It was a case of ‘Virgil stays, see’ this summer – as Southampton told the defender that Liverbirds are no,” PaddyPower spokesman Lee Price told The Gambling Times.

“We make them 3/1 to sign him in January, with no one else in contention – but that could all be a bit sci-fi.”

That will come as bad news for most of us as we have seen our club struggle to keep clean sheets. But there always is a silver lining even in bad news.

No Van Dijk, No problem!

There are two solutions to our defensive problem, one is that we do sign Van Dijk and pay a hefty fee to the Saints, even though they are reluctant to do business.

They might not want the money from the sale, thanks to their new owners but keeping an unhappy player isn’t the best for the team morale and sooner or later, the defender will be sold either to us or someone else.

The other solution is that we sign someone else in the winter window as we cannot keep playing with just Dejan Lovren, Joel Matip, Ragnar Klavan and Joe Gomez as our central defenders, due to poor form and even injuries piling up.

What is a bit of a shocker is that we did not have a Plan B and that is hurting a bit for sure. The winter window will be another big test for our resolve as we look to keep hold of a few players. A central defender has to be high on the priority list, even if it isn’t Van Dijk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ng5Nb4Cdk0