Gus Poyet has revealed that Brighton missed out on the chance to sign Virgil van Dijk for just £3million when he was at Dutch club Groningen. Van Dijk has developed into one of the best defenders in the world, with Liverpool shelling out £75m to sign him in 2018.
The 33-year-old is now Liverpool’s captain and has helped the club win two Premier League titles, the Champions League, the FA Cup and two League Cups. He also enjoyed a spell at Celtic where he won two Scottish Premiership titles and three seasons at Southampton.
However, Poyet has now shared that Brighton had an opportunity to sign Van Dijk when he was in charge of the Seagulls and they had not yet been promoted to the Premier League. When asked how he uses data as a manager, Poyet told Flashscore : “I don’t use it as a first tool.
“I learned to use the data, for example, let’s go to a player. I’m watching a player now, I need to bring him. The best person I have worked with on this kind of information is [Brighton owner] Tony Bloom.
“He’s absolutely unbelievable. It will take you months to learn it because it’s so many numbers that you don’t imagine. But when you understand why, wow, wow. I got great examples of that.
“One day, I got to the training ground, and I got a phone call from (Bloom). He said to me, ‘You need to travel to Groningen to watch a central defender’. And I said, ‘What?’ ‘Yeah, you must go now. Go back, get to the airport, get your passport and go’.
“And we went with my assistant. We sat down in the stands with a little luggage between our legs. Watching the game, and it was Virgil van Dijk. He was of a different class.
“We called (Bloom) back after the game and said, ‘Sign him’. But the price was three million, and we were Brighton and we couldn’t pay three million for a defender, and we didn’t sign him. Then he went to Celtic and then to Southampton.
“But (Bloom) was that kind of guy who was ahead of the rest. He knew that Van Dijk was a player who played in the first division of Holland with those characteristics, with those data, etc.”
Reflecting on his relationship with Bloom, Poyet added: “He was the one I had the best understanding with. He was spectacular with our recruitment system. Obviously, it was his first job as a chairman, and for me, his second manager, a different character.
“Then all the people who went to the club, they started talking to him, and they confused him a little bit about me. But we grew up together. I think he went to another level in terms of not only recruiting players, but recruiting managers.”
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