so our 3-4 week pursuit of van dijk has culminated in liverpool completely embarrassing themselves, and running away like an ashamed dog with their tail between their legs.

its no surprise that liverpool use southampton like an academy, weve signed so many of their players. idk what happened with our approach of van dijk. apparently southampton were going to report liverpool to the premier for "illegally" approaching him.

a day later, liverpool release this on their website

Liverpool Football Club would like to put on record our regret over recent media speculation regarding Southampton Football Club and player transfers between the two clubs.
We apologise to the owner, board of directors and fans of Southampton for any misunderstanding regarding Virgil van Dijk.
We respect Southampton's position and can confirm we have ended any interest in the player.

there goes our marquee signing...nice one -.-

wow....that was a sudden and surprising turn of events

not sure if thats sarcastic or not hahahah :3

no i was genuinely surprised when i heard this...thought he was bound to go to liverpool

U should be happy, 50m on Van Dijk would be totally wasted

He can still go to Liverpool, the whole drama sounds like he was going to Liverpool and since it was noticed his team couldn't bargain for more money so now Liverpool is trying to say that they are not going to sign him but he's still going to end up there anyways...that's how it sounds.

EDIT: Had to read the entire situation. Pretty poor move from Liverpool but at the same time, 50m on Van Dijk? That's like John Stones all over again.

And if Liverpool made an official statement like that, that would very well mean Van Dijk won't be moving to Liverpool. City are the only ones that were challenging for him.

@Golazo I think the bit abt ending any interest in signing him kind of suggest the transfer is off for good

Man, that suck. Seem like Van Djik is gonna be stuck at Southampton for another year unless someone decide to break the bank. From what I seen, even City feel like Southampton are asking too much for him.

Liverpool has been using Southampton as an academy ?!!! Holly shit ! But I hear Arsenal is also using Southampton ?! Saints are just being used and dumped constantly . Shame on FA for allowing this . No means NO !

u mean like vitesse? ;)

@Marcus

Southampton made the decision to allow the transfers to happen. They do better every season (with the odd exception) and have had their club value increase astronomically in comparison to all the other teams they are competing with.

Seems like their formula has worked ok, the club is run so well that players and managers can revolve in and out the door without any damage whatsoever to the club's overall ability. That speaks to a fantastic executive group, rare these days.

@Sunflash Thats actually pretty sick when think about it. Southampton are really impressive and they got a lot of supporter as well if I'm not wrong. Just goes to show there is more to a club than key player. ;)

But we sent players to Vitesse thus it is a mutual benefit . They aren't complaining and happy with relationship we have developed .

@sunflash
Good point , didn't look at it that way . They are meeting their objectives every year but if they truely want to develop into top side maybe it will be clever to put an end to this formula . Perhaps they are waiting for better times .

@Marcus

While I don't necessarily disagree with you, I think it may be good to provide perspective - we've only seen Southampton as a solid premier league team, but they had a really impressive journey just to get to this point. For the owners/CEOs/CFOs, etc - this was a club in the lower divisions of English football a decade ago. As much as I'd like to see them make a run at a title, stability seems to be the order of the day, at least for now.

from what i hearing/reading, former managers and players are saying that "illegal approaches" happen all the time. that still doesnt excuse or normalise our behaviour....