This is something we’d been wondering, in truth.
A few days ago, Liverpool fans went into meltdown after Kevin Palmer, who has close links to Southampton, claimed that we were expected to tie up a £70m structured deal for Virgil van Dijk in the January window.
The Dutch defender has been Jurgen Klopp’s primary target since June and was left out of Southampton’s past two lineups, possibly in preparation for a winter transfer.
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However, fans on Twitter asked Palmer why only he had broken the story, and none of the Liverpool correspondents like Paul Joyce, James Pearce etc. have touched it yet.
According to Palmer, after the summer sh*t-storm that led Southampton to report Liverpool to the Premier League for tapping van Dijk up, they’re being ‘careful’.
Suspect a few being careful after last summer. Nothing finalised yet either
— Kevin Palmer (@RealKevinPalmer) December 24, 2017
This of course makes complete sense. Every LFC journalist published the same story over the summer, which was essentially that Liverpool had completed a deal barring the small matter of agreeing a fee.
It was this that enraged Southampton and caused them to take action, forcing FSG into a public apology.
This time, the club is obviously being incredibly careful with leaking news and has likely asked the regular correspondents to hold fire.
In this instance then, the silence isn’t a sign that there’s no developments – but that Liverpool are making sure not to make the same mistake twice.