Jimmy_D

So... after 7 years of continually better league placings, we've dropped two places, in a season where we had our best ever showing in the Europa League, and were denied silverware in the League Cup by inept officials. This summer, it looks like we could well resist a world record fee for a defender to keep hold of our best player. And this constitutes a downward spiral? What exactly were you expecting?

Difficult to read much into that, looked like we were trying a few things out and giving chances to some fringe players. There was the odd flash of decent stuff, but hopefully we'll see a much better performance on Saturday with what you'd expect to be pretty close to our first choice team.

I see some of their utter ****wits are still trying to peddle the line that we always wanted to sell and it's just the money we're mad about. Obviously, everything, from making him captain, to him still having half a decade left on his contract, to us stating every single time he's not for sale, to actually calling out an investigation on them for tapping up, which caused them to put out a humiliating public apology, and end all interest in him, apparently at our insistence... all of that just screams 'for sale'....

Sounds like it's time for you to find something else to do.

It would be, but I don't think he's available at that price any more.

Not surprising, 'tis a David Maddock article.

Technically he's not on strike as it's the club that's sent him to train on his own, and isn't refusing to play but is instead not in the right frame of mind to play. That can easily be blamed on the agent giving him bad advice. Might not wash with everyone on here that's been hitting F5 on here every 3.6 seconds, but it'd be easy to spin for the majority of fans that aren't us that he's knuckling down and back with the team, especially with a few soundbites from his team mates and a couple of decent performances on the pitch. Bearing in mind that the player hasn't said anything himself publicly, and it's all media reports and twitter that everyone is basing their opinion on.

Still failing to see how anything you just said there is remotely true.

Oh no, how terrible, he might end up having to stay here.

I'd guess he was approached by the agency and they offered to represent him, maybe even for free, but taking a cut of any transfer fee due to him. A player like him at a club like Southampton would normally end up being pretty lucrative eventually.

Or we just keep hold of him because no one can afford him.

Sounds to me like we're giving van Dijk the narrative to come back in after we've not sold him. Blame the agent, get his head down, play well, fans happy.

A few seasons ago, I'd have said it was pessimistic to only expect 2 years out of a player that had just signed a 5 year contract... It's just plain weird that either the player or Liverpool are EXPECTING this to go through. With the rate of inflation in football transfer fees these days, every year he's got left is worth increasingly more. I'd say even at £75M he's being undervalued.

It's a bit more than a technicality. Legally Barcelona have absolutely no recourse to keep hold of their player. Without that they wouldn't be selling.

Neymar's situation is completely different. He has a release clause which it seems PSG have met. Barcelona don't really have a say in it and all the power really is in the player's hands there.

They will if they think they can get another year of service from a very good centre back, and then get £70M.

How often have you heard of a player not joining a club because they kept hold of their best players? Keeping hold of Schneiderlin didn't stop us getting VvD, for example. Not to mention that in VvD's case, we have every right to turn around and say they didn't go about it the right way.

Exactly. We need to be saying (and possibly already are) that both Liverpool and van Dijk gave up any chance of van Dijk moving to Liverpool when they tried to go behind Saints back to make it happen.

Yeah, would depend on the team we put out obviously, we might well see some academy players given a chance this season etc.

I really don't want to want to watch a season where on a regular basis, literally half of the outfield players lining up for Liverpool are players they've bought directly from us. Haven't bothered to work out exactly how much it'd be, but if he goes there, it wouldn't surprise me if the team that lines up against us has more minutes on the pitch for Southampton than the team we put out.

Yeah, realise that, more aimed at the claim it was due to refusal by VvD and him being fined bit. I'm skeptical about that to be honest.

Do you have a source for that, or are you just regurgitating the crap that's was started on twitter by AnfieldExpress?

The IP address suggested they were located in Liverpool or Manchester too

All signs point to 'yes'.