Overly cryptic social media posts aside, Liverpool’s much publicized move for Southampton defender Virgil van Dijk appears to be dead in the water after the Reds publicly withdrew their interest in the Dutchman and issued a unreserved apology to the South Coast club over what they had deemed to be an “illegal approach” for the Dutchman.
“I remember the days when Liverpool used to be quite classy in transfer negotiations,” said Saints legend Matt Le Tissier, speaking to the Liverpool ECHO. “If a club came in with a world record bid, it would be foolish for Southampton to turn that down,” continued the former England man, before putting a damper on the Reds hopes of still doing business with the South Coast club. “With what’s gone on it would be highly unlikely, even if Virgil puts a transfer request in, he’d go to Liverpool this summer.”
While that remains a matter of opinion, there’s no question that the Reds chances of still signing Van Dijk have been utterly devastated by this whole fiasco. Tipped to be Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp’s number one transfer target, the Dutchman appeared to be on course to join Southampton alumni Sadio Mane, Adam Lallana, Dejan Lovren and Nathaniel Clyne at Anfield until stories began leaking to the press regarding not only his perference of a move to Merseyside, but an unauthorized meeting with the manager to hash out terms and discuss the German’s vision of the future. Although there’s a number of conflicting stories floating around regarding whether or not the Premier League will take action, the fact of the matter is that it shouldn’t have got anywhere near this point at all.
“Only person at Liverpool who should apologise is the person who fed the story he wanted to come to LFC when no fee had been agreed,” said Liverpool legend Jamie Carragher, blowing off some steam with a Twitter rant. “I’m blaming the person at LFC who fed it to the local press!” continued the former Reds defender. “Soton won’t be bothered LFC spoke to player/agent before them as they & all clubs do it. But will be with LFC for feeding that fact to press.”
