KLOPP on VAN DIJK:
Don’t boo him.. he can go to the top, and where would you Saints be now without the money we’ve paid
THE talk will inevitably be of Saints and sinners when Virgil van Dijk returns to St Mary’s tomorrow. Yet for Jurgen Klopp it really should be of past and future for his record buy – what he was, and what he will eventually become.
Liverpool’s ex-Southampton man will inspire vicious abuse from his spurned former supporters yet for Kop boss Klopp it is merely the next step the world’s most expensive defender will take on his journey to becoming the world’s best defender.
“He is good and he will be much better,” said Klopp,” who paid a club-record £75million for Van Dijk at the beginning of last month.
“Our style of defending is 100 per cent different to Southampton’s. He will lead this line but at the moment he is not 100 per cent used to it. You have to adapt to all these things and then there is the football. We have had much more time to train but it is still not like you would do in pre-season.”
Klopp (above with Van Dijk) says he means no insult towards Southampton. Indeed he joked that his club should move their academy down to the south coast because Liverpool have spent £170m on Saints players in recent seasons. Yet he believes it is only in a demanding environment like Anfield that Van Dijk can fulfil his potential.
“He is a footballplaying centre-half but we have to defend as well,” he said. “That’s how it works when you arrive in the middle of the season.
“Everything is different here. Liverpool is an outstandingly big club and the boys have to do a lot of things around training, more than the other clubs do.
“But he has all the football tools and he is getting better and better. He was not 100 per cent fit when he arrived here but everything will be better in a few weeks.”
Klopp expects the usual Southampton reception for one of their old boys tomorrow, and he will speak to the big defender before kick-off to warn him what to expect.
“I accept it is quite a special situation as it was the big move of the transfer window,” he said. “That is how fans are – they will want to do everything they can to help their team and disturb us. So they will whistle.”
Klopp, though, cheekily suggested that Saints fans should really be thanking Liverpool for giving their club so much money in recent years – Adam Lallana, Dejan Lovren, Sadio Mane, and Nathaniel Clyne have all moved to Merseyside from St Mary’s.
“They have really good centre-halves there so it was the perfect business for them,” he said.
“I don’t think Southampton will say we have stolen him.
“It was a very public deal and the numbers, even when they are not 100 per cent right, are OK so maybe they are really happy and should say ‘Thank you for all the money we have now’ – or it could be the other way around.”
The Reds boss hinted that Liverpool skipper Jordan Henderson (above) will sit out at St Mary’s to keep him fresh for Wednesday’s Champions League clash at Porto.