Neil Warnock Explains Why He Passed On Signing Virgil Van Dijk For £6 Million

Neil Warnock has told how Crystal Palace ignored Virgil van Dijk while he was at Celtic because of Scottish football.

The English manager was in charge of the Selhurst Park club back in 2014 when it emerged that the Dutch centre back could have been on his way out of Glasgow.

According to Warnock, Palace expressed an interest in van Dijk, but refused to follow up on it after a scout wrote him off.

Instead, Southampton decided to take the plunge on the centre half, buying him for £13million - and now they're set to make a £62m profit after agreeing to sell him to Liverpool in a £75m deal.

When you read Warnock's account of why Palace missed out on him, you can only laugh at the contempt Scottish football is held in among some south of the border:

"When I was at Palace, I went after a centre-half at Celtic called Van Dijk and they wanted £6 million." Warnock said.

"So i said 'we've got to buy him, don't we?' But the chief scout went to see him and said "he's not very quick; it's Scottish football. That was before Southampton came in for him."

So Palace have struggled to stay in the English Premier League over recent seasons and will now miss out on a huge profit due to one scout's lack of respect for Scottish football?

We can't imagine the fans will be happy with that.

Van Dijk will complete his move to Liverpool once the January transfer window opens, bringing an end to a two-and-a-half season spell at Southampton.

Earlier today, Warnock caused further conversation when he claimed Cardiff's Sol Bamba was a better defender than Liverpool's latest signing Van Dijk

I give you Neil Warnock,ladies and gentlemen.

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