Jimmy_D

Even supposing for a single second (but no longer, I'm not completely daft) this is something the club specifically do, what makes you so certain it originates from Reed? No chance of course, that you're just trying to provoke reactions... None at all... Like I said, getting really really old.

The only players that have had their reputations ruined (which is by no means all the players you seem to think it is) have done that themselves. Trying to blame Reed for that is utterly ridiculous, and repeating it every other post doesn't make it any more believeable. It is getting really really old now.

In small markets like this odds drop significantly from a few people betting on it. The people most likely betting on VvD to Liverpool are Liverpool fans. The same Liverpool fans that seem to think VvD will hand in a transfer request and force us to sell him to them.

Actually he didn't. Was an edited webpage that a screenshot was taken of. http://spoonbill.io/data/virgilvdijk/ No changes since February.

Makes you wonder what sort of team we'd have now if the tapping up rules had actually worked as intended all along.

I'm enjoying the Liverpool fans thinking they can still get him if he hands in a transfer request. Because that wouldn't look like he'd been tapped up at all would it? Utter ****wits.

Know for a fact he'd changed to his Dutch colours a few days ago. Splash hasn't changed from our Europa colours.

Think it's ended in terms of going to Liverpool this window at the very least. If he did end up there they'd probably be hit with the tapping up stuff.

About bloody time the tapping up rules showed some teeth! Gerrard making that statement today about VvD can't have helped, considering he's a Liverpool employee and not just an ex-player, especially as it was after we complained about the tapping up.

It's a World Cup year too. That has two benefits for us, one that he's very very unlikely to strike or put in poor performances and put his World Cup place at risk. The other is that a good performance at the World Cup would see his value increase more.

Liverpool fans still thinking it's about the money... Saints being bitter that a bidding war hasn't developed and that VvD has effectively already left. We want VvD here next season. We currently have one of the world's best defenders on a 5 year contract. Even the £75M top end being touted would likely leave us worse off than that. It's this exact situation, where a player is under a long contract and the only way to get that player is by making them want to leave, that the tapping up rules are designed to prevent. That's the reason Saints are so ****ed off, and rightly so by the way it sounds like Liverpool have gone about this. I think that we're prepared to make this a point of principle now, that short of VvD going on strike, he'll be here next season.

Would have been right behind him if he'd stayed, and seeing Saints in a final at Wembley because of him was awesome, but I can't say I'm devastated he's gone.

https://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?58431-Puel-Sacked-Reported#.WTcq3RMrJ-U

Jeez, reading their forums... It's like the tiny-minded ****wits think buying a few players off of us obliges us to sell them whoever they want and they can go about it however they like. The thought that we might be keeping him seems to be completely alien to them.

Yeah, there's absolutely no precedent for that at all. http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/liverpool-transfer-ban-academy-players-two-years-fine-embargo-a7668771.html

Umm...

It's weird. It's like they think it's already a done deal, legally binding, and Saints are just trying to delay the inevitable, or are bitter about there not being an 'auction'.

We're not the bitter ones here pal

Probably because Chelsea and Man City have had representatives meeting representatives that skirt the rules without breaking them. There are media reports that Klopp himself has swayed van Dijk himself. That would be illegal tapping up that actually breaches the rules, if true.

VvD would be legendary on a MLT level in my eyes if he's done that

I particularly like how they seem to think it's sour grapes or posturing, and we're guaranteed to let him go because it's our business model. Can't possibly be that we might actually want to keep hold of a player we have on a long contract, and would have no hope of replacing for any fee we got. There's the difference between us and an actual selling club. We don't need the money. Yes we sell players, but it's always for other reasons, usually the player pushing to leave, or they're on a short contract, or backing ourselves to spend the money better than the club buying off us. Can't see us turning round and selling to Liverpool now.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/40170351

'VvD to stay at Saints' doesn't sell many papers.

If we really were a feeder club to Liverpool, they wouldn't have to pay through the nose for our players, we wouldn't have used the money to finish above them last season, and to **** all over their only hope of silverware this season.

I honestly think you might end up surprised this time round.