Former Celtic assistant manager John Collins has revealed that Liverpool passed up on the chance to sign Virgil van Dijk for £12million during his time at Parkhead.
Collins was assistant to Ronny Deila between 2014 and 2016. Van Dijk left the Hoops for Southampton in 2015, and eventually joined Liverpool for £75million in January 2018 – some £63million more than they could have paid.
“Liverpool, well Gary Mac [McAllister] was the assistant manager to Brendan [Rodgers] and I phoned Gary and said I hope you’re going to come and take Virgil,” he told beIN SPORTS. “Gary said he had mentioned him to Brendan; Brendan wasn’t sure if he was better than what they already had.
The inside story on how @Arsenal turned down the chance to sign Virgil van Dijk from @CelticFC. #beINPL #LFC #AFC #CelticFC pic.twitter.com/VPJZa84kuQ
— beIN SPORTS (@beINSPORTS_EN) September 22, 2018
“I think it was £12million,” Collins said when asked what the price for Van Dijk was at the time. “Every team in England watched him regularly but they all had their doubts. I think the worry was he was showing all the qualities against Scottish players, the question was could he do it against English, top defenders?”
OPINION
Brendan Rodgers has been left with a bit of egg on his face here hasn’t he? Liverpool had the likes of Dejan Lovren, Martin Skrtel, Kolo Toure and Mamadou Sakho at centre back during the 2014-15 season before Van Dijk left for Southampton. The fact that Rodgers wasn’t sure that Van Dijk was better than those defenders now looks like a ginormous error, but it’s easy to have doubts about players coming from Scottish football. We’ve seen people like Gary Hooper and Craig Gordon fail to cut the mustard south of the border, but then there’s also been Van Dijk and Victor Wanyama who have been huge successes. You never know how good a player you’re getting when you purchase a Scottish Premier League star, so Rodgers’s doubts were understandable, it’s just that he has been made to look incredibly foolish by Van Dijk’s ascent to greatness ever since he came to England.
