Liverpool spend silly money to beat Chelsea, City to center back target

Well, that escalated quickly!

Or, in fact, escalated very slowly.

On Wednesday, Liverpool confirmed the signing of Virgil van Dijk from Southampton, finally getting their man after a summer-long pursuit that included tapping up charges, apologies, and a whole lot personal drama down on the South Coast.

Chelsea were peripherally involved, as were Manchester City, though it’s quite likely that both teams were only used as bogey teams to try to motivate the deal to completion. It seemed pretty obvious in the summer that Van Dijk would end up in Liverpool, like most Southampton players do, and so it has come to pass as all foretold fates do.

The transfer fee is understood to be a heart-stopping £75m, which is a new transfer record for a defensive player. (Chelsea are now free to sign Alex Sandro for £70m without burdening him with that tag, right?)

The funny part in all this is Klopp and Liverpool expecting Van Dijk to somehow magically solve their systemic problems. You could put the best individual defender in Klopp’s bonkers system and he would still get repeatedly exposed and made to look terrible (right, AVB?). So, good luck with all that, Virgil.