Virgil van Dijk

Don't wanna close my eyeeeeeessssss don't wanna fall asleeeep cos I miss you baby and I don't wanna miss a thingggggg

 

Was there a window when VVD didn't want to leave.....ffs.

http://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/604453/Ronny-Deila-Virgil-van-Dijk-doubled-transfer-value



Ronny Deila: I brokered deal with Virgil van Dijk before we doubled his transfer value

RONNY DEILA says a frank discussion with Virgil van Dijk helped Celtic keep the defender on for one last year and double his transfer fee.

Van Dijk, 24, signed a five-year contract at Southampton this summer after completing an £11.5million switch.

He had been tipped to leave Celtic in 2014 when Premier League clubs made their interest known, but the Hoops retained their centre-half and won the title.


And manager Deila revealed how he convinced Van Dijk to stay for one more year before reluctantly selling the Dutchman.

"I understood the longer time went on that this was going to happen," Deila told Sky Sports.

"Because his head was telling him 'I want to leave, I need to leave, I need a new challenge'.

"Last year I struggled hard to keep him. I said 'stay here, get European experience, play here at a high level in the Premiership and then you will get bigger opportunities next year'.

"We could have got maybe £7m-£8m for him last year but now that was doubled and we have done very well for him.

"We could have made him (even) better but his head wanted that next step and that is very hard to stop a player."

 

Well if that happened, well played.

But to be brutally honest Efe has more time with me than VVD now, he's history.

 

Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell has told The Scottish Sun that Virgil van Dijk was desperate to leave the club in the summer transfer window.

Van Dijk joined Premier League outfit Southampton from Scottish Premiership champions Celtic on a five-year contract.

According to BBC Sport, the Saints had to pay the Bhoys a transfer fee of £11.5 million for the services of the Dutch centre-back.

Lawwell has revealed that the 24-year-old did not want to stay at Celtic any longer.

“We didn’t have to sell van Dijk,” the Celtic chief executive told The Scottish Sun. “We could have have kept him to his contract which had two years left.

“We would have preferred to do that. But the dynamic had changed. Virgil was desperate to go. He’s gone to Southampton for five times his salary.

“If we had held on to him for another two years we wouldn’t have had a very happy player. Now, over the next few years he’s going to be earning £45,000-a-week at Southampton.”

Van Dijk was one of the best players for Celtic for the past two years and was arguably the best centre-back in the Scottish Premiership.

 

Aye right

Not that it matters anyway.

 

Which means he was on the princely sum of £9,000 per week with us. Absolutely shocking wages for a player of that quality.

 

And I just noticed this at the end of the article and nearly spat tea all over my laptop!

Arguably?!?!?

Who the * even came close?!?!

 

Just gonna highlight that.

Maybe he is just a numbers cruncher after all.:icon_mrgreen:

 

Unless he's trying to get Efe's value up.

 

Had a conversation with a mackem a month or so back and he was saying Sunderland fans wanted us to qualify for the CL as they had convinced themselves we would then sign Fletcher. I tried to explain to him that there was no way we would be signing Fletcher unless he agreed to taking a massive paycut. He was saying "but surely you could pay his wages just pay him what Van Dijick will be getting which must be 40k a week+"

This is a guy that has been watching Sunderland long before the EPL and actually writes for some "against modern football" blog so I was quite surprised how little he understood about football outside of the EPL bubble.

 

Hope he enjoys his money. He'll have a lot of time to think about what to spend it on while sitting on the cold, hard bench.

 

The problem the club has is getting these guys onto a 2nd contract with a pay rise.

No way should we be putting new singings onto 20-25k per week.

But by the time we know is they are worth keeping they are ready to head for the epl.

 

Well, it's a problem the club has to solve. Be it offering a gentleman's agreement that they will be free to leave after a certain period of time for a certain fee or whatever.

Truth be told, I wouldn't have stayed at Celtic for £9,000 per week when I had teams elsewhere offering me 5 times that.

 

That's one lot of *! If Virgil had wanted to stay but the money was still on offer Big Daddy Pedro would've chased him out the door. Fact is Lawwell's seen a player who wants to go and plenty of money on offer so he's snapped there hand off for it. (ok, I'll give him is due. He haggled the price up as high as he could) He never had any intention to keep Virgil to the end if his contract. Bollocks!

 

Yes its a tricky problem,we can end up losing VVD or having Efe on 25k per week....lol.

Truth be told if we was going to be paying players 25k per week rather than give it to guys who are using us to get to the epl and very low chance of them staying i think the club would be better paying it to good enough scottish players or guys that are already in the epl and want out due to lack of games ect.

 

They won't come (usually) for 25k from the epl.

 

Lets be honest VVD wanted out last summer....every window he had his eye on the exit door and when there was a scout at a game the * was trying to be messi.:smiley-laughing002:

 

That's because you're not a true Celtic supporter.:bbpd:

Unlike the boys on here who say they would stay

 

Yeah i know....it really is a one way street.....unless we get the young cant get a game and a little doubt over their ability, like we just have with two of our signings.

 

Ambrose tries the same but his reading & spelling is *,
so he tries to be messy as well.

In fairness he succeeds more.