Virgil Van Dijk has told Saints he wants to leave and is training alone after Mauricio Pellegrino removed him from the squad, but Saints position is still unmoved he will not be sold, Arron Sanders gives the initial report.

Reports have emerged on Friday afternoon from new Saints boss Mauricio Pellegrino regarding the current situation regarding unsettled defender Virgil Van Dijk.

Virgil van Dijk has said he wants to leave and is not currently in a fit “psychological” state to play for the club, and the Argentine coach has ordered the Dutchman to train separately from the first team squad.

In his first interview since taking over at Southampton, Pellegrino has reiterated the club’s stance that Van Dijk will not be sold this summer and says that he hopes the 26-year-old will be reintegrated into the squad once he accepts the situation.

Van Dijk has made it clear he still wishes to leave the club despite the firm stance taken by owner Katharina Liebherr and chairman Ralph Krueger over his future. Van Dijk was also on Chelsea’s list of defensive targets at the start of the summer. Speaking at Southampton’s Marchwood training ground, Pellegrino said that he believed that Van Dijk would eventually return to the first team squad.

Pellegrino said: “My relationship with Virgil is excellent. I was clear with the boy, and I was talking from the first day with him. The club was clear. The club told me they will not sell Virgil. I communicate the idea of the club to the players and for me it was easy [to leave Van Dijk out of training] because I had to manage the dynamic of the team.

“Now he is not involved with the team because psychologically he is not 100 per cent. If you are not 100 per cent with the team I need to work with the players who are 100 per cent to defend Southampton. It’s easy for me.”

It was Pellegrino’s decision that Van Dijk train separately, and the Argentine is expected to be uncompromising when it comes to protecting the team spirit at the club. “The boy said that he is not available to play because he wants to leave. This is the decision. I had to say, ‘If you don’t want to be involved because you don’t feel okay then you have to train alone until this period of time is over.”

Asked whether Van Dijk would leave, Pellgerino said: “I repeat that the club said not. I hope that Virgil can review his feelings because you know that today a player is big business. Not just the player but behind them is a lot of interests. I don’t want to say too much but we need the player, 100 per cent. I want to help the squad, I want to help Virgil, but we need a player, and I repeat, involved in every training session, not just with the body but with the mind on the pitch with the rest of the players.”

Pellegrino is sure that Southampton can emerge from the transfer window with Van Dijk back in the team. He has the full backing of executive director Les Reed and recruitment director Ross Wilson, the two key figures in Southampton’s remarkable trading success over recent years.

Pellegrino also said on the current squads requirements: “I believe the team needs important players to be stronger but there is no player more important than all the rest. This is clear for me. There are a few examples that are more important than the rest — Alfredo Di Stefano, Pele … we talk about George Best, Bobby Charlton, but I don’t know how many others. Today, maybe Lionel Messi.

“I believe none of us are more important than the team, and this is crucial. The team needs important players, but important players need the team more than the other. I don’t know [how long the stand-off can go on]. I know I need all the players. I need the 25 players, I need Virgil to be involved in the dynamic every day and to be prepare to play.

“If the manager has got 26 soldiers instead of 23 it is better. We need everybody. When you sign a contract you are part of the team, because you cannot play your own game. It’s something we have to know from the beginning. The club was clear and for me it was easy, but I am responsible for the dynamic of the team. The group support this dynamic because we respect everybody, but we have to respect the club because that it is more important than any person.”

It seems like the speculation surrounding Virgil Van Dijk is going to rumble on, until either the window closes or the club decides to sell the player.

One thing is for sure he should be stripped of the role of player captain, with the likes of either Oriol romeu or James Ward-Prowse candidates to replace him.

It should be noted this behaviour is out of character for Van Dijk, but his agent and Liverpool have obviously persuaded him to take this drastic stance to try and force through a move to Liverpool.

What do you make of the latest developments in the Van Dijk saga? do you agree with me that he should be stripped of the captaincy?

Photo: Action Images

the_saint added 18:33 - Jul 21 I went into work today and told them I wasn't in the right frame of mind to work, bloody cheeky buggers docked a days pay......... I won't try that again
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redandwhitedee added 18:33 - Jul 21 Romeu should be captain anyway. Take the biggest cheque someone offers and move forward. No-one is irreplaceable. We sold Lovren and got VVD We sold shaw and got Bertrand We sold wanyama and got Romeu We sold Clyde and got Cedric. Let him go and move on.
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DPeps added 18:36 - Jul 21 Inevitable, predictable etc. Another nail in the coffin of the beautiful game
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the_saint added 18:36 - Jul 21 Should go back to FA and follow up tapping up, all Liverpool have done is told there ex players to keep the heat on us
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ExiledSupporter added 18:45 - Jul 21 Very disappointed in VVD, but perhaps not all that surprised. Important issue is for Saints to at minimum keep him at the club until next summer or to sell him next week at the highest price "quoted" ie. £75m leaving enough time to replace him and Fonte before the closure of the window. Have they got the balls for this...we shall see. Yes, Romeu as captain for me, not JWP yet

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sambat added 18:52 - Jul 21 It's about time the club took a hard line against players who under contract, and hopefully they continue to do so. VVD maybe a valuable asset but he should be put in the reserves, either till he is ready to give 100%, or he fades into insignificance. OK Saints do sell players but it should be on the clubs' terms, not the player's. If he is eventually sold I would prefer it to be to a foreign club, especially not Liverpool, a club that seems to abuse the rules and etiquette of the game.

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bstokesaint added 19:01 - Jul 21 I'm disappointed in VVD. Very disappointed. I've lost so much respect for a player who I considered to be level-headed and a team man. I actually don't want him to stay now I know what he's really like. I certainly don't want him near the first team. Put down an eye watering for sale price of somewhere closer to £100m and make Liverpool pay through the nose. I don't ever wish harm on any player, but after what we brought him back from if Jamie (the nasty scumbag) Vardy did take another chunk out of him it'd sure as hell feel like karma. Football players are not the idols that hard-working fans that pay stupid money to watch think they are. The beautiful game just gets more and more ugly.

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the_saint added 19:04 - Jul 21 Think saints need to stand firm on this one if they want to shake off that selling club tag, unless really silly money is offered and even then not to those who are still living off the 80s and still think there a big club
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sainttiz added 19:11 - Jul 21 Long term reader, first time comment.... If I was offered 3 times the money to do my job elsewhere to potentially do less, I would think seriously about it. However. This makes no sense for him. By refusing to play he will end up out of the shop window with the World Cup next year. If he moves to a club with a bigger pool of defenders he risks not being played and ends up in the same situation. I reckon they should play hard ball and see how long it takes for the penny to drop.

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patred added 19:27 - Jul 21 No more mucking about, it's time to get out there and get in 2 good replacements. Wimmer and Pelligrino's old center back from Alaves seems obvious choices. Stephens, Bedinak, and Yoshida will make an adequate cover for those 2, but not alternatives, no matter the cost. And now we face a big task to keep Bertrand and Cedric. We still should resist selling any of these players to Liverpool, including VvD. The policy of extending contracts has failed at the first hurdle, and leaves us with egg on our face.

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WanderingSaint added 19:54 - Jul 21 I don't get it. Has handed in a transfer request? Has the club received an offer, but rejected it? All so predictable and boring really. Sadly, half a city of men will be smiling that someone's gone on strike in this way. I hope Yosh and Stephens are chomping at the bit to show us bedwetters they're worth talking about too.
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dirk_doone added 20:15 - Jul 21 Old Les, the master negotiator, will not only get rid of another of our best players but manage to reduce the fee Liverpool have to pay by at least 20 million.
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SanMarco added 20:17 - Jul 21 Not comedy this article then. It is quite clear that he will not play for us again. We need to: 1. Insist he puts in a formal transfer request. 2. Tell him he's not going for less than 80m - if no such offers received then he has got a long year of training on his own. 3. Make it quite clear that we are NOT selling him to Liverpool at any price. If this bloke follows Lalana in engineering a move and then still getting his transfer bonus I will stop watching football.

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SaintBrock added 20:23 - Jul 21 Looks like was a good decision not to renew my ST! haven't bought tickets for the friendlies either. Time was, I didn't want to miss one kick of the pre-season... This is how it all works now so time lads and lasses to stop shelling out your money to greedy mercenaries who hardly know which country they are playing in. Shame on you Mr van Dyke, many thought you were hewn from a different rock

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SaintGeorge added 20:30 - Jul 21 Fck him. He's got no place at Saints - he's got no place in football if he can't respect the best practices of his profession, not to mention a legal contract and the reasonable expectaions of the people who pay his wages. Sack him for breach now. Make sure his reputation suffers. What a cnt.
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Bettwsresident added 20:36 - Jul 21 Has he handed in a transfer request? That is the key as it means he loses 10% of any transfer. Does he want to move that badly? I was 'tapped' up in my work a few years ago, it scrambled my brain for a couple of weeks before I realised my best option was to stay where I was. I hope that this is the same situtaion and come the start of the season we will see him bossing the defense for saints once more. I don't like Pellegrino calling him a 'boy'. I hope that is a translation error as otherwise it could just force his hand.

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the_saint added 20:41 - Jul 21 Forget FA go straight to FIFA like Monaco have for tapping up
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sidsaint added 21:03 - Jul 21 I feel sorry for Pellegrino. Another well intentioned new manager landed with a major problem by the board's intransigence. Disappointed with VVD as I was with those that have left in the last 2/3 seasons. Not worth keeping an unhappy player, get as much as we can and show some ambition by strengthening the team like Everton and West Ham have done.
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Bettwsresident added 21:54 - Jul 21 Liverpool bidding 80m for Keita, Chelsea just spent 60m on Morata..do either have a spare £75m?
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VancouverSaint added 21:59 - Jul 21 I think it's disgraceful of teams "tapping" up players. Liverpool got caught and were made to publicaaly apologies and back off but that didn't stop them getting all their ex-players one by one to stat the same story over again and again. I hope the League do something about this whole affair and stop this type of cancer spreading. VVD was happy enough to sign a six year contract and then Liverpool got to him. Disgraceful, let him rot until he sees the error of his ways.

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patred added 22:03 - Jul 21 Carrol.. we can't complain to either FA or FIFA. We were asked for evidence, but chose instead a public apology from LFC, and promise to desist. That was naive as we would be in trouble ourselves should we want the FA to look into now. We chose to WITHHOLD EVIDENCE, that in itself is against the FA rules.
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NewburySaint added 22:41 - Jul 21 The situation is simple really-we have all the aces. Unless an acceptable bid comes in from a team that isn't Liverpool the hierarchy have to leave him away from the 1st team squad until September 1st then revisit the situation with VVD after then and see whether he then wants to commit to us again for the rest of the season under the proviso that he would have to earn his place back through hard work and commitment. This really will test Saints because, with Van Dijk more than any other player that has wanted to move in recent times, we really only need to sell on our terms and come next summer, even if he doesn't play for any of next season, his value would not decrease by much, only through lack of game time. But i'm sure that wouldn't be the case anyway because if he is still with us come September the realisation of the World Cup being next year should sink in meaning he would "knuckle down", I assume anyway!

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SanMarco added 22:49 - Jul 21 Can I actually raise a slightly different issue and one that has puzzled me for some time. All of the players who left us 'against our will' went to the one club who wanted them - no 'bidding war' in sight. VVD is, I think most would agree, one of the best CBs in Europe. It therefore seems extraordinary that only a second tier 'big club', Liverpool, are interested in signing him. Is there some sort of collusion amongst the big boys to allocate players cheaply. After all, VVD goes on strike and we then get one low bid from Liverpool and its really going to hit the fan. Is it the case that none of the really big clubs are interested??? I don't believe that. I hope I am proved wrong and a Barca or a Real Madrid come in - if not then there is, in my view, something else (apart from the greed, manipulation and sheer cynicism) that stinks about all this.....

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IanRC added 23:29 - Jul 21 SanMarco, quite, corruption doesn't end at FIFA. Our own regulator has much to answer for.
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PezzaSaint added 23:56 - Jul 21 Let him rot in the reserves. Sometimes principles should come before money! Given the last few seasons of player sales we must now stand firm or it could be open season again with Bertrand, Cedric and Tadic also throwing their toys out of the pram. How can you build a future for the club if players and not the club have the upper hand?
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