Manchester City should have signed Liverpool’s Virgil van Dijk when he was at Southampton, suggests Graeme Souness.
The former Celtic central defender moved to Liverpool from Premier League rivals Southampton in January 2018 for a transfer fee reported by BBC Sport to be worth £75 million.
Liverpool legend Souness believes that City manager Pep Guardiola should have signed the 28-year-old when he had the chance.
Souness wrote in The Times: “If Guardiola could turn back the clock two years, to the January transfer window of 2018, he would pay a premium to sign Virgil van Dijk, topping the £75 million that Liverpool paid Southampton for him. I said at the time it was a no-brainer.
“It’s not the last piece of the jigsaw because Guardiola would never be happy with his lot, but there was never a question of how Van Dijk would handle the Premier League because he had already shown he could after moving south from Celtic.
“For City, with their owners, there will always be a premium to be paid for a player, it’s how big that premium is. There are deals they just have to take on the chin, and Van Dijk was one of them.”
World-class central defender
Van Dijk is one of the best defenders on the planet and is a world-class footballer.
The Dutchman has been superb for Liverpool since he moved to the club, and he has been a major factor behind the Reds winning the Champions League last season and being on the verge of clinching the Premier League title this campaign.
Stats
According to WhoScored, Van Djik has made 25 appearances in the Premier League for Liverpool so far this season, scoring four goals in the process, and he has also played six times in the Champions League.
During the 2018-19 campaign, the Dutchman scored four goals and provided two assists in 38 league games, and he also scored two goals and provided two assists in 12 Champions League matches for the Reds, according to WhoScored.
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