Virgil van Dijk was left to wait more than six months to secure his transfer to Liverpool after the club were made to apologise to Southampton, who hold some embarrassment over their stance.
Liverpool made Van Dijk a priority signing in the summer of 2017, with the defender viewed as a transformative figure who could help steer Jurgen Klopp‘s side to silverware.
It proved true, but he had to wait until January 2018 to make the move to Anfield after Liverpool issued an apology and declared they had “ended any interest in the player.”
Southampton were prepared to file a report over an illegal approach and their former CEO, Martin Semmens, has now conceded the Saints’ belief that Van Dijk “owed” the club “is embarrassing.”
Talking to talkSPORT earlier this month, Semmens explained why Southampton sought to take a hard stance with the Dutchman and, in hindsight, why it was not the best decision.
“Virgil van Dijk was a big one for us. We treated him in a different way and said, ‘You can’t go’. It didn’t work well for us,” Semmens said.
“We didn’t [get him back on our side]. Virgil was fantastic, in my opinion, he trained at 75 [percent] and played at 75 [percent] and was still the best player in the team, if not the league.
“He didn’t cause us any problems. He never said a single bad word to anyone, but he wanted to go, and it wasn’t effective for us to keep the player.
“We kept him until January. It wasn’t good for the squad or the environment, but to be clear, Virgil never said one negative word to anybody.
“We felt, at the time, we could get more if he stayed. He’d had a bad injury, I think he’d been out for six to nine months and we felt that he owed us, which is embarrassing now I think back to it.
“There was also some contact from Liverpool we didn’t love. At that time, probably a little more for the morals, he had already met Klopp before he told us.
“But in the end, he did a very good job for us and we sold him for a good price.”
Liverpool would announce the signing of Van Dijk on December 27, 2017, in what was then a club record and a world record deal for a defender, of £75 million.
He quickly proved that figure to be a bargain, establishing himself as the best centre-back in football, winning eight honours (so far), finishing as runner-up in the Ballon d’Or and now serving as the captain of Liverpool.
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