BT Sport pundit Chris Sutton has claimed that Liverpool’s rivals in the Premier League “will be kicking themselves” for failing to snap up centre-back Virgil van Dijk during his days at Celtic.
The Netherlands international arrived in England with Southampton in a £13million deal from Parkhead in the summer of 2015, before eventually moving to Liverpool in January for world-record £75million.
Sutton has now claimed that Premier League teams were judging the Scottish Premiership rather than van Dijk himself when they snubbed the chance to sign him before Saints’ £13m deal, and says they will always regret that decision.
In a column for the Daily Mail, Sutton said: “The sides who looked at Van Dijk and rejected him were not judging the player but the league he played in. Van Dijk was not the finished article at Celtic. He sometimes had a tendency to coast in games and could not always keep concentration for the whole 90 minutes.
“He has always played with a confident strut but that does not mean he is lazy. He is a graceful player who oozes class. Since arriving at Anfield in January, he has transformed Liverpool’s defensive unit beyond recognition.
“Liverpool’s Premier League rivals who had a chance to sign him from Celtic will be kicking themselves for not taking him seriously.”
OPINION
In many ways it is hard to argue with Sutton here, as van Dijk’s class has been obvious from the beginning. During his days at Celtic the Dutchman was always head and shoulders above everyone else on the pitch, and for Southampton to pay just £13million for him is mind-blowing. Imagine if one of Liverpool’s top-six rivals had managed to snap him up? That would now be being lauded as one of the transfers of the decade. The most important thing however is that he has ended up at the top of the game where he belongs, and Liverpool are the club who are reaping the rewards. As Sutton says, van Dijk has managed to totally transform the Reds’ defence, with Klopp’s side now regularly keeping clean sheets, which were a collectors item before his arrival. The world-record arrival of Alisson this summer will help that process even further, with the Brazilian now providing a confident and assured presence between the sticks.
