Southampton To Outbid Newcastle For Virgil Van Dijk
Newcastle United have been linked once again recently with Celtic centre-back Virgil Van Dijk.
United were originally said to have an interest two years ago when the 6ft 4 defender was still playing in Holland with Groningen.
That interest wasn’t followed up and now Celtic are reaping the benefits with Van Dijk proving a star act last season both in the Scottish Premier and Champions League.
The twenty two year old has now attracted plenty of attention and Celtic’s Chief Executive recently urged Virgil Van Dijk to give the Scottish Champions one more season, claiming it would allow the player to develop further, as well as Celtic benefiting of course.
However, as well as Newcastle, both Sevilla and Southampton are said to be closely looking at Van Dijk.
While Southampton have lost Luke Shaw for close on £30m and with Adam Lallana likely to join Liverpool for a figure close to that, the south coast club are said to be determined to reinvest a lot of the money that comes in, to ensure they are competitive next season.
As part of that process the Saints are reported to be ready to pay a premium to land Virgil Van Dijk, with an understanding seemingly lacking at Newcastle, that sometimes you do need to go that extra step to land key players.
Southampton also being aware that they are very likely to lost central defender Dejan Lovren, so are ready to move quickly to secure an up and coming replacement in Virgil Van Dijk.
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