Here we go again, media reports on the continent are saying that Jurgen Klopp has already identified Virgil Van Dijk's successor in the centre of the defence at Anfield and once again they are looking to shop in Southampton.

Saints fans will be aghast to hear that once again Jurgen Klopp is looking to St Mary's to solve his defensive issues and he is not alone in casting envious eyes at a certain player.

Fichajes.net in Spain state that Liverpool, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich "closely follow the evolution" of the 20-year-old at Southampton and that Jürgen Klopp is an ‘admirer’ of his compatriot and sees him as a long-term replacement for Virgil van Dijk at Anfield.

The player in question is of course Armel Bella-Kotchap who has played just 5 Premier League games so far in his career for Saints.

Should Saints supporters be worried ? the answer is probably not just yet, all three clubs like Saints and indeed other top clubs will identify and monitor the progress of certain players and this process although sometimes short before they make their move, can also take sometime, years even.

Take Van Dijk formerly of this parish for instance, Liverpool were monitoring him when he was playing for Celtic as where Saints, but the Scottish Premier League is not a great test for a player, Liverpool preferred to let him sign for Saints and prove himself in the Premier League before they made their move, they could have got him cheaply, but would he have made the progress at Anfield and gain the experience necessary there ?

The answer is no, Liverpool need experienced players who can step straight in, they have the money, better to pay top dollar for the finished article than gamble.

So this may well be the case with Bella-Kotchap, at 20 he has some experience, but little at top flight, he played for VFL Bochum mainly in Bundesliga2 and only 20 or so times in the German top flight and so far just 5 Premier League games for Saints.

So he will be being monitored by many club's but Liverpool have that history of raiding Southampton in a viscious way not seen in the City since the French raid on the City in October 1338, when we were taken completely by surprise and raped and pillaged in a way not seen again till Brendan Rodgers turned up in 2014 .

So at the moment all three teams will be waiting to see how he performs for Southampton in the Premier League, they know that he has a long way to go in his development, Van Dijk was 22 and had played 62 times for Griningen when he joined Celtic, he was 24 when he joined Saints and 26 and fully proven when he joined Liverpool, now turning 32 next summer he is nearing the end of his career and Liverpool will be looking at his progress and from what we have seen so far he does seem a natural successor.

Some will see this as a negative story, here Saints go again a selling club, but truth is that has always been the case, the problem has never been selling players, as long as we spent the money well and repeat the process, the problem has always been when either we have bought badly ie Vestergaard to replace Van Dijk or when we have not had any players someone actually want's to buy.

So I see this story as a positive, Sport Republic are clear in their strategy and it seems that only months into their tenure they have turned a squad from one where we hardly had many queueing at the gate to sign members of it, to one again that is bursting with young talent whom we will improve and move on.

This time of course we are better prepared and organised to not only identify the likes of Bella Kotchap, but we will like Liverpool and Van Dijk will already be identifying his successor.

Photo: Action Images

IanRC added 11:44 - Sep 16 Hopefully if and when he does eventually go the fee will be well in excess of a £100 million.
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felly1 added 12:32 - Sep 16 No Nick, sorry, Wesley Hoet was the bad buy not Vestergaard who we basically got are money back for. How much did Hoet cost and how much did we recoup on him?
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Mattsgrandad added 12:53 - Sep 16 Sorry Nick I thought you were talking about bednarek for a moment. He wants a much bigger club , he is an unassuming intelligent man and 100 million would be fine thankyou. All our other players are not for sale Klopp so no illegal tapping up.
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SWH1748 added 14:48 - Sep 16 IanRC- personally I feel ABK is better at this stage in his Saints career than VVD was who had, as Nick states, a lot more experience. I rate him and totally agree he will be circa £100M easy in a couple of seasons at this rate, as a club we have to ensure we keep him long enough to reach this peak and not do a spqr deal just to get profit.
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Block8 added 10:27 - Sep 17 Last night showed he has much to learn and that seems to be our niche in the transfer market. get them young, fatten them up so to speak, and sell them on for big money. We are a small club and if this is the way for us to survive, until we are brought out by a big rich country,then so be it.
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