Former Hull City head of recruitment Stan Ternent has revealed the reasons behind the Tigers’ not pursuing Virgil van Dijk when he was at Celtic.

Van Dijk is considered by many the best defender in the world at the moment and has been pivotal in Liverpool’s rise over the last two seasons.  

 



He was a massive influence behind Liverpool’s Champions League success and has lived up to the kind of money the Reds splashed out to snare him away from Southampton in January last year.

The Dutchman moved to England with Southampton when he left Celtic in 2015, but Ternent indicated that he could have easily joined Hull during that time as well.
 


He revealed that the Dutchman caught his eye when he went to Scotland to watch a Celtic game and Ternent even spoke to then Hull boss Steve Bruce about Van Dijk.



But the former Hull transfer guru admits that the Tigers already had Michael Dawson on their books and were not in a financial position to pursue Van Dijk as well.

“There was one game where I flew up to Inverness on a Saturday morning to watch this defender”, Ternent told The Athletic.
 

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“I watched the Celtic game and called Steve afterwards. I said I just didn’t know about this lad I’d gone to watch because he never broke sweat all afternoon but still played well.

“He was clearly a talent but we already had Michael Dawson. Plus, we didn’t have a bottomless pit of money at Hull so, in the end, we didn’t do anything.

“The defender was Virgil van Dijk.”

Van Dijk is also the Netherlands national team captain and has 32 caps under his belt.