Chris Kamara advised Jose Mourinho to sign Liverpool star for Manchester United | OneFootball

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Stretty News

·24 March 2023

Chris Kamara advised Jose Mourinho to sign Liverpool star for Manchester United

Article image:Chris Kamara advised Jose Mourinho to sign Liverpool star for Manchester United

Chris Kamara has revealed he advised Jose Mourinho to sign Virgil van Dijk while he was in charge of Manchester United.

The Dutch centre-back had shown great promise during his years at Celtic and again at Southampton, which is when Van Dijk started getting linked with some of the bigger clubs in England.


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Liverpool eventually won the race to bring Van Dijk to Anfield in January 2018 in a deal that cost them £75 million, as per BBC Sport.

As much as we don’t like to praise Liverpool on this site, the Van Dijk deal has proved to be money well spent because it wasn’t long ago that the Netherlands star was recognised as one of the best centre-backs in the world. It would be a stretch to call him that this season, though.

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Former Sky Sports reporter Kamara says he urged Mourinho to snap up Van Dijk during his reign at Manchester United.

Kamara claims United were not willing to cough up the money required to sign Van Dijk from Southampton — which ultimately made it easier for Liverpool to strike a deal.

“I can exclusively reveal that I told Jose Mourinho to take Virgil van Dijk to Manchester United,” Kamara said on the Proper Football podcast (via BBC Sounds).

“Jose said, ‘these lot [Man Utd] won’t give me the money for him’. And then Van Dijk went to Liverpool instead.”

Mourinho spent almost two years in charge at United before getting the sack. He wasn’t successful in building a formidable back four like he managed elsewhere – but it wasn’t all his fault.

Ed Woodward and the Glazers have a lot to answer for and we are sure there are more cases like this… Not just Van Dijk.

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