Chelsea manager Antonio Conte has revealed he wanted to sign Virgil van Dijk before the defender moved to Liverpool in a stunning £75m deal.
Liverpool made Van Dijk the most expensive defender of all-time at the start of the month, successfully fending off interest from Manchester City in the process.
However, it has now been revealed that defending Premier League champions Chelsea were also in the hunt for the former Southampton defender but concerned about paying out more than £50m.
“This is football,” The Independent quote Conte as saying on Tuesday. “This is life. For sure he was our target but as you know this is football. We can have a lot of targets but you must be able to reach those targets. The transfer market is not simple for any club.
“But Liverpool bought Van Dijk to reinforce his defensive line, and I think Van Dijk is a top defender. And they spent [75] million euro for this player. The same time, they sold very well Coutinho because when you sell a player for this amount of money, and then you have the rest of money to invest, to improve your team.
“But I think the transfer market is not simple, it’s not simple, especially if there is this amount of money. It’s not simple, and Arsenal, I don’t know what happen but, I repeat, the best way to look at ourselves, to try to find the best solution for us is don’t look the other.
“But I have great respect for the other teams, from the other managers, because behind every operation there is a programme, is a plan and I have great respect for every manager, every team.”
Conte has previously let his frustrations about Chelsea’s recruitment policy be known and missing out on another top transfer target will certainly not sit well with the Italian.
It also suggests that the Chelsea manager wants to bolster his defensive options this month despite the arrival of Antonio Rudiger over the summer.
While Chelsea were left to rue missing out on Van Dijk’s signature, the Netherlands international made a dream start to life at Liverpool after scoring the winning goal in Friday’s Merseyside derby.
The 26-year-old is widely considered as one of the best defenders in the Premier League and will now be aiming to rediscover the form he showed before a serious ankle injury in January 2017.
