Former Premier League star and broadcast pundit Robbie Savage has said that Liverpool’s Virgil van Dijk could leave him embarrassed this season if he goes on to win the Premier League and Champions League this season.
The Reds are fighting with Manchester City at the top of the table in England while have a quarter final showdown with Porto coming up.
Picking his player of the year, Savage has opted for City’s Raheem Sterling but insists that van Dijk, who he rates as a £200million talent, will prove him and all his doubters wrong with a trophy at the end of the campaign.
He wrote in his column for the Mirror: “If Liverpool go on to snatch the title and win the European Cup – as I write, they are two points clear and have drawn Porto in the Champions League quarter-finals – I will have egg on my face for picking Sterling ahead of Virgil van Dijk.
“Van Dijk has looked the best centre-half in the world, and he is the biggest single factor behind Liverpool having the best defensive record in all four divisions.
“Anyone who doubted he was worth £75 million when they signed him from Southampton 15 months ago is tucking into humble pie now. In today’s market, a player of VVD’s quality would cost at least twice as much, possibly £175-200m, and he’d be worth every penny.”
Opinion
Let us first discuss that £200million valuation Savage has slapped on the Dutch international’s head. Is anyone in world football worth that sort of money – even Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo? Surely that is taking things into a level of spending that no one is worthy of, no matter how good a defender you might be. To be fair to van Dijk, he has proved why Liverpool spent so much on him, transforming their defence from leaking soft goals to keeping the best forwards at bay on a regular basis, and as Savage says, a trophy would leave him with a real argument as to being the best player – if for nothing more than the huge impact he has made at Anfield – in the Premier League. If he keeps these sort of performances up, then there is little doubting Liverpool will be in contention for some silverware in the future.
