Virgil van Dijk

Hope you didn't take my bit of sarcasm to literally, though in all seriousness who would we replace him with if he goes

 

But Kevin Wilson never shipped that many goals against barca...

 

Kelvin Wilson CSC

 

Some * better than Ambrose anyway

 

We'll find someone, we always do.

 

No we don't. We make do and convince ourselves our players are as good as the ones before them.

Doesn't mean we can't be succesful. If you're talking quality wise Van Dijk is Johan Mjallby's replacement.

In reality Stephen McManus was. He had a cracking career for us but wasn't at that level.

We still haven't replaced Henrik. Doubt we ever will.

 

It's not as if we'll bring in the Van Dijk money and not spend something to replace him though, is it?

In that regard we will replace him.

 

But we still won't replace him quality wise.

You know that for a fact.

 

Obviously.

Unless we have a spare £15-20m lying about

 

If we punt him we might :icon_mrgreen:

I think what most people are getting at when they don't want hin to leave and ask who the * we could get that could replace him aren't talking about it being impossible for us to sign any centre back, they're talking about someone who can fill his shoes, somebody of comparative quality.

As out Pedantic Davie knows fine well :icon_mrgreen:

 

Pessimist!

You know how it works. We get a big fee, and spread it across a few players. That season we lost Hooper, Wanyama, Ledley and Wilson - the spine of our team - we bought Balde, Van Dijk, Boerrigter, Pukki, Bitton, Johansen and Griffiths.

In effect we replaced:

Hooper - Griffiths
Wanyama - Bitton
Ledley - Johansen
Wilson - Van Dijk

2 of those 4 will eventually move on for big fees, Johansen (if he does move) will probably be the £5m bracket, and Griffiths is a reliable scorer

 

Someone else will take on Van Dijk's mantle, though.

When Vic left, Forster shone as our star performer. When Forster moved on, Van Dijk stepped up. We're all expecting that, when VVD does leave, it will be Nir Bitton who becomes our top player.

 

Kinda backs up my point, we tend to change the style rather than get a like for like replacement. A lot of the time it is impossible to do so. Van Dijk was actually signed to replace Efe Ambrose, then Wilson * off but they were the most similar in style with Van Dijk being far better.

We'll always find players and build a team, if you're talking about replacements though I don't think so. If Van Dijk goes I think you'll see the back line with more protection and sitting a bit further back.

 

No, it's unlikely, but it's not a fact.

We got Van Dijk for what? £2.5 million? If we got him at that price, and we got Wanyama for less than a million quid, as well as getting Forster for £2 million, what's to say we won't pick up another player for that kind of money that has a similar level of success?

Isn't that what we do? We buy players, bring them through, sell them for profit.

 

Its one thing replacing a player. Another replacing a class player. We havnt had a very good center back for a long time, i rated Wilson but VVD is a good bit better. Who was last center back at Celtic before VVD who was on a similar level? Its before my lifetime. We have been priveledged with a lot of very good atracking players in recent years, but not so much at center back.

Will we replace him with another player? Yes. Will we replace his physicality, dominance, composure, class? No.

 

When you put it like that we've actually done not to bad replacing those players. Van Dijk's better than Wilson, Johansen's better than Ledley (Imo) Bitton's became a good replacement for Wanyama. Only one that fails for me is wee Griffy for Hooper.

 

Agreed but we have had good goalkeepers and good midfielders over the years. Quality center backs have been few and far between. Id go as far to say its highly inprobable. But not fact.

 

All three players are a different position, a lot of them take time to settle in and get up to a certain level. Forster took 2 years. Wanyama 6 months to a year. Bitton 18 months to a year.

Van Dijk was ready made quality. May not be an absolute fact but the probability is we won't replace him with comparitive quality.

And your last question, yes we do, obviously. Which is kinda my point, we'll bring someone in and develop and hope they can get to Van Dijk levels of success but we won't be replacing quality with quality, we'll be replacing it with potential.

 

It does and it doesn't. We may not find a direct replacement for the big man, but it's not impossible we'll find another player (or players) who are at his level elsewhere on the park.

 

Yeah, all of that may be true, but that's how it goes I guess. Other clubs in our position have to put up with this as well.