Arsenal
Aston Villa
Chelsea
Crystal Palace
Everton
Fulham
Leeds United
Liverpool
Manchester City
Manchester United
Newcastle United
Nottingham Forest
Southampton
Tottenham Hotspur
West Ham United
Wolverhampton Wanderers
News
Liverpool round-up: Rodgers wanted Southampton star; Wijnaldum explains poor form; club to miss out on prodigy
Brendan Rodgers has revealed to the that whilst Liverpool manager, he wanted to sign Dutch defender Virgil Van Dijk, but club bosses ruled out such a move as they felt that he was not yet ready. Rodgers said:
“It’s about where the player is at, at the time of their ability. Virgil van Dijk could have jumped from Celtic to a Liverpool. Some clubs will want to see the players tested at certain arenas first. But if there is enough belief in the player then that counts. The key for scouting is trying to predict when the player is peaking. You could see with van Dijk that he was quick, strong, good on the ball and decent in the air… There is maybe an issue with scouts. When I was at Liverpool I asked about van Dijk and he was at Groningen and then at Celtic. But I was told he wouldn’t be for us at the time.”
Now at Southampton, Van Dijk is one of the Premier League’s most wanted defenders and has been linked with the likes of the Reds, Manchester City, Chelsea and Manchester United after his commanding form on the south coast.
Dutch midfielder Georgino Wijnaldum has discussed the club’s poor form, which saw them pick up only one win in 2017 against League 2 side Plymouth Argyle before their weekend clash with Tottenham, as the midfielder :
“We are hurting from every poor performance and every bad result. That is how it is. You have to go on… I think in some situations we put too much pressure on ourselves and that is why it went so wrong. If you have a few poor games in a row you are going to put pressure on yourself of ‘We have to win this one or this and this will happen’. I think we were too busy thinking about the consequences than concentrating on the game. Last week we were only concentrating on Tottenham: how we can play against them, how we can hurt them and so on. The focus was different than a few weeks before. That is my opinion.”
The £25 million summer signing produced what has been labelled as his best performance to date in a Liverpool shirt at the weekend, with his assist opening the scoring through Sadio Mane.
However, the club are set to miss out on a potential signing as claim that Sevilla are set to secure the services of 19-year-old Nigerian prodigy Henry Onyekuru. They claim that the striker, who has scored 16 goals in 40 games for Belgian First Division side KAS Eupen, will instead head to the south of Spain after ignoring the interest of Liverpool and Celtic.
Featured Image: All rights reserved by .