Sunderland missed out on Virgil van Dijk

Sunderland have been linked with some massive names over time, which in some circumstances may have led to an entire turnaround from the place the membership is now.

There isn’t any touted transfer with extra potential to have completed this than when the Black Cats have been linked with Virgil van Dijk again in 2015.

Would Virgil van Dijk have stopped Sunderland’s stoop to League One?

Gus Poyet even lately got here out to assert that he had watched him within the Dutch league when he labored for Brighton & Hove Albion, so while he was supervisor of the Wearside membership he was “very, very interested” within the then-Celtic defender.

The truth is, the Day by day Mail even reported that that they had an £8m bid lined up for the defender.

Everybody now is aware of his story although, of how that switch didn’t materialise as he moved to Southampton, earlier than joining Liverpool in a world document price for a defender.

All of it may have been so completely different had Sunderland simply taken the plunge on the Dutchman who was on fireplace for the Scottish champions.

He has since gone on to win nearly everything on the Reds while being crowned the PFA Gamers’ Participant of the Yr and UEFA males’s Player of the Year in 2019. CIES Soccer Observatory even charges the defensive “monster” at €50m (£45m) these days.

The 31-year-old, for a interval, was broadly recognised as the most effective centre-back in world soccer and has been talked about in conversations with a few of the best ever to do it.

While the £220k-per-week star has accomplished his rise, Sunderland have fallen from the Premier League all the best way to League One and are actually caught hoping for promotion from the Championship.

Not solely was he immense for the Saints, the place he recorded a 7.48 SofaScore score throughout the 2016/17 season, but in addition the £75m price they finally acquired would certainly have gone a great distance in direction of stopping the huge stoop they confronted.

One instance that might not have been as excessive profile was Jack Rodwell’s refusal to go away the membership, as he drained them together with his £70k-per-week wages while within the Championship.

So many issues would have been completely different had they simply taken the chance, and this switch will without end stay one of many greatest ones that acquired away from Sunderland.