Swansea City will have huge 2014 Virgil van Dijk regret: View | OneFootball

Swansea City were linked with a move for Virgil van Dijk in the summer of 2014

Highlights

Often in football, a club will pass up the opportunity to sign a player only to see said player perform well elsewhere, leading to the club regretting having not signed them.

Swansea City know all too well about this, having passed up the opportunity to sign Jamie Vardy in 2012, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in 2013, and could have signed Alphonso Davies in 2017 had it not been for work permit issues.

However, the one that could frustrate the Jack Army the most came a decade ago, when Swansea City were interested in a move for then Celtic centre-back Virgil van Dijk, but weren't willing to pay the transfer fee that the Hoops were demanding.

A move to south Wales obviously never materialised for the Dutchman, and Swansea can only look back and regret their decision not to sign him following his success since.

Swansea will have huge regrets over not signing Virgil van Dijk

In the summer of 2014, Swansea were on the hunt for a new centre-back after Chico Flores departed after two successful seasons, joining Qatari side Lekhwiya, and Garry Monk was looking for a statement signing ahead of his first full season in charge.

After an impressive first season at Celtic where he helped his side lift the Scottish Premiership title, Van Dijk was named in the PFA Scotland Team of the Year, as well as winning the Player's Player of the Year award at Celtic.

It was no surprise that he was attracting Premier League interest, and in July 2014 it was reported that Swansea wanted to offer £6million to sign the then 22-year-old.

However, Celtic insisted that only a 'crazy' bid could tempt the club to sell one of their prized assets, and Swansea moved onto other targets.

The Dutchman ended up staying at Parkhead for another season, before leaving for the Premier League in the summer of 2015, joining Southampton, where he'd go onto spend two-and-a-half seasons, before joining Liverpool.

Meanwhile, Swansea did make a statement signing at centre-half and brought Argentina international Federico Fernandez to the club from Napoli for £8million, and whilst he was a solid performer, he was no Van Dijk.

Swansea could have made huge money on Virgil van Dijk

Southampton forked out £13million to sign Van Dijk in the summer of 2015, double what Swansea were willing to pay the previous summer, but it worked out as an incredible bit of business for the Saints.

After two-and-half seasons of impressive performances at St Mary's, Southampton sold Van Dijk for a whopping £75million as the Dutchman joined Liverpool and became the world's most expensive defender.

This meant that the Saints made a huge £62million profit on the defender, and Swansea could only look on and regret their decision not to sign him in 2014.

For context, Swansea sold Fernandez to Newcastle United in the summer of 2018 for just £6million, meaning they actually made a £2million loss on his signing four years earlier.

Swansea should have been braver and met Celtic's demands to sign Van Dijk as he would have made them serious money in the years that followed, and would have been an upgrade on Fernandez.