Manchester United are privately convinced Virgil van Dijk will prove to be a great-value Liverpool signing within 12 months amid fears over spiralling transfer fees, according to the Guardian.
The newspaper claim in an explanation of United’s summer business that the club, led by transfer negotiator Ed Woodward, have identified Kyle Walker’s £53million move to Manchester City and Ousmane Dembele’s “outlandish” £135million switch to Barcelona last summer as grossly inflated deals that sent the market out of control.
The Guardian report “United believe Van Dijk’s fee will not seem disproportionate within a year” even though their bitter rivals Liverpool spent a world-record defender sum of around £75million to prise him from Southampton in January.
OPINION
It is hard to dispute the reported view of the United hierarchy that Liverpool did a great piece of business with the Van Dijk deal. It was a risk at the time, because the Dutchman had been average for Southampton in the first half of last season after being denied his dream move to Anfield in the summer of 2017. Van Dijk got his way in January – when Liverpool paid an eyebrow raising sum to get him – but it looked money well spent as he delivered a series of Rolls-Royce displays in the second half of the campaign and was a key man as the club reached the Champions League finals. Most Liverpool fans are hailing him as not only their best centre-back since Jamie Carragher, but potentially their best since Alan Hansen. The Dutchman will need to purr for the next half-decade to reach that standard, but he certainly has the talent and potential to do so. Commanding, mobile and technically outstanding, Van Dijk is a brilliant defender at his peak. Little wonder United are jealous.