NO matter what your opinion is of a defender costing the astronomical sum of £75m, Virgil van Dijk does deserve a huge amount of credit.
After all, it took him a mere 80 games for Southampton to go from being some duffer playing in a pub league which someone’s Nan could win – a popular expression in 2017 – to becoming the world’s most expensive centre-half.
It’s incredible, really. One minute, the Dutchman is playing for Celtic
and scouts from Crystal Palace and Newcastle United, plus three or four others, deem him not good enough and within two seasons – one of which was considerably shortened by injury – Liverpool are breaking all records to get him.
“When I was at Palace, it was difficult to sign players,” Neil Warnock told talkSport, the radio station which, more than any other, devotes hours into putting down Scottish football. “I went after the centre-half at Celtic, Van Dijk, and they wanted £6m. I said, ‘We have got to buy him, don’t we?’
“The chief scout went to watch him and said, ‘He is not very quick, it’s Scottish football’. That was before Southampton came in for him.”
Well done that chief scout.
He’s right up there with the guy at Newcastle who had Victor Wanyama watched a dozen times and then made it clear his club were above buying players from such a backwater and instead signed a ragtag bunch of French players who got them relegated.
This is what footballing genius Alan Pardew said about Fraser Forster, who was loaned to Celtic from Newcastle where he was manager, on the goalkeeper’s return.
“I think he’s coming back to a completely different level of football, I’ll tell you that now.
“We have watched that division and watched him all year. We’ve been disappointed with the quality of the games, other than the occasional Rangers versus Celtic game, and even some of those have been poor.”
I covered Pardew’s God-awful Newcastle United and watched them lose 15 out of 21 competitive fixtures.
Read more: Ten years on, but memory of Phil O'Donnell is being kept alive at Motherwell
Incidentally, during my stint in England I saw some great players, Gareth Bale in the flesh was a joy, but some bang-average footballers make millions down there.
Southampton have made a fortune out of Van Dijk and also Wanyama who moved to Tottenham two years ago. Forster forced his way into the England squad because of his performances for the south coast club, while ex-Rangers man Steven Davis is team captain and has played over 200 games.
James McCarthy and James McArthur of lowly Hamilton Accies won the FA Cup with Wigan, the former then moved to Everton, while his pal is at Crystal Palace. Former Falkirk player Scott Arfield plays every week for an excellent Burnley side.
Andy Robertson, who began his career as an amateur with Queen’s Park, cost Liverpool £10m in the summer to sign him from Hull City. Barry Douglas also began at Hampden and he too moved to Dundee United and is now at Wolves – his team currently sit eight points clear at the top of the Championship.
And talking of English football’s second tier, a league which pundits down south believe Celtic would finish at best mid-table (shakes head) there is, among many others, Steven Naismith (Norwich City), Kevin McDonald (Fulham) and Barrie McKay (Nottingham Forest).
Ross McCormack’s career may have gone off the rails but he scored goals for fun in that division. I could mention plenty more. All of them are Scots-born and just look at the clubs they began with. It’s the likes of Livingston, Motherwell and Dundee. Not all are products of the big two. And still most English clubs would pay millions for a League One player than take a risk on someone with 150 Scottish Premiership appearances behind them.
An agent I spoke to recently said: “I stopped offering players from Scotland to any Premier League team because they’re not interested. You can sell them to the Championship, but that’s about it.
“The odd thing is that they would be getting good players for a bargain.
I could offer a lad from up here for a couple of million and they would rather spend four times that on a player who isn’t any better and sometimes is worse. It’s madness.”
Returning to the Van Dijk deal, which is obscene it must be said, the question is has the player improved so much that he’s gone from Crystal Palace not rating him to Liverpool hoping he can be their saviour?
Of course not.
Look, nobody is claiming Pep Guardiola should start hanging about Tynecastle or Rugby Park. None of the Scots mentioned above, Robertson aside, play for a truly big club and those at the top can afford just about anyone.
But if Scottish football is such a joke, then ask yourself this: How did one of our clubs discover the world’s best defender two years before anyone in England had even heard of him?
In terms of developing previously hidden gems, our game is punching way about its weight and if England wants to ignore this until said gems are worth a fortune, then hell mend them.
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