There is no doubt that Virgil van Dijk has been one of the most sought-after central defenders in the Premier League for quite some time now. Landing him in the January window as clearly a significant coup for Liverpool, especially as league leaders Manchester City were said to have been sniffing around, too.

There is also no doubt that he isn’t worth £75m. But then again, this market is obscene. No one is really worth that amount, but if you had to make a list of the Premier League defenders you’d spend that money on, the Dutchman would be near the top of the list.

And yet, if you were to base your decision solely on his performances this season, he wouldn’t even come close to being one of the league’s top defenders.

Instead, his broken down move in the summer has left him out of the loop in many ways. He has spent the season barely caring, just seemingly counting down the days until he could sign for a new club and get as far away from St Mary’s as possible.

But the question few asked was if that would help.

Clearly you don’t become a bad footballer overnight, and it’s clear that few if any onlookers would be of the opinion that Van Dijk is only as good as his current form. And yet, there are now rumblings. Jamie Carragher, speaking on Sky Sports’ The Debate programme, has suggested that the new signing may be a little overweight - certainly not something a player of his calibre should be accused of, and at this stage of the season, it’s really rather shocking.

But it speaks to one of the real problems with the transfer for a man Liverpool paid so much money for.

Take Philippe Coutinho, for example. Last summer, he acted badly. He effectively went on strike to attempt to force a move out of the club. It was only after the transfer window was closed that he put his life back on track. But there’s a difference: he didn’t sulk. Despite his petulance in the summer, he got on with it again and played some of the best football of his career to date.

Van Dijk, on the other hand, has sulked. Instead of staying fit and healthy and caring about his football he appears to have landed at Liverpool in need of something of a pre-season.

It shows that you can’t just turn it on and off like a tap, which is presumably what Van Dijk and many onlookers thought might happen.

No one, other than some very misguided individuals, thought that Van Dijk by himself would transform Liverpool’s defence into world beaters. But many seemed to feel as though the team would be helped enormously by the arrival of a genuinely good defender. That will no doubt happen in time, but right now what we’re seeing is a player who has seemingly let himself go for a few months, not realising just how difficult it would be to get back up to speed.

Is that simply to be expected from a player who was kept for half a season against his will? Or should we worry that this is symptomatic of an attitude problem which will plague him for the rest of his Liverpool career at times when things aren’t going well for him?

If you can unsettle a player in pursuit of his signature, perhaps that should tell you that his mentality isn’t one you want to invest so much money in.

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