Van Dijk’s gift would make any defence better and City should break the bank
I KNOW Pep Guardiola has said his priorities in the summer will be signing a full-back and a defensive midfielder.
But if I were him, the first person I would be targeting is Virgil van Dijk.
I would offer John Stones and Nicolas Otamendi plus £150million for the Dutchman and would not stop until Liverpool accepted that my offer was simply too good to turn down.
I know Jurgen Klopp has a long-term contract at Anfield and that, even if Liverpool don’t win the Premier League, they will probably finish second and won’t want to be selling their best players.
Especially not to their biggest rivals. But Van Dijk is one of those incredibly gifted athletes and would make any defence anywhere significantly better.
And if Manchester City want to become the dominant force they say they do, then going all out for him would be a no-brainer.
Van Dijk reads the game better than any defender in the Premier League and is a bit old school in that respect.
I would put him in the Rio Ferdinand bracket when it comes to his reading of situations – he sees the danger, acknowledges the danger and has the physicality and athleticism to be able to deal with it.
Some players can read the game but don’t have the pace, some have the pace but not the instinct.
He has the lot, and on top of that he exudes a calmness that rubs off on the rest of the Reds back four.
I see in Van Dijk someone who is unflustered and will go on, either with Liverpool or another club, to win many, many titles. And by the time he hangs up his boots, we could be talking about him in the same venerable tones that we do Sergio Ramos if he gets the chance to win silverware either on Merseyside or elsewhere.
As a former striker who used to love testing himself against the best defenders, I don’t half enjoy watching him play and trying to work out what I’d be doing to try to get the better of him.
Moving him into wide positions as often as possible would be my first thought because he reads the situations very well when you are around the edge of the penalty box and trying to find space to turn.
He’s very good at snuffing out the danger then walking away with the ball, and that can become very dispiriting.
So you drop a little bit deeper, take him wider and into positions he’s less comfortable being in, even if only slightly.
Mind you, it might not make too much difference because he could play full-back quite easily.
But you would still try to create gaps for others to run into.
I go back to Celtic fans saying, ‘This guy is the real deal, he’s a Rolls-Royce’.
Because, having watched Henrik Larsson between 1997 and 2004, they know what players of that calibre look like.
Van Dijk has to be worth at least £175m of anybody’s money.
And, while it’s easy to throw around statements such as ‘best in the world’, I really believe he is.