Sami Hyypia: Signing van Dijk is Not Essential

Former Liverpool defender and always wonderful human, Sami Hyypia, has a lot to say about the Reds’ ongoing saga with van Dijk. As of this weekend, there appears to be a glimmer of hope in the distance and we all reacted with the composure that such a story deserves. Hyypia, however, thinks Liverpool may be taking this whole thing a bit too far.

“Van Dijk is a very good player, I like him a lot, I think he has very good qualities in every area of the game,” Hyypia told 5times over the weekend. “But I don’t know if it’s essential to sign him or to sign a centre back.”

Now that the whole tapping-up business well in the past (practically ancient history), Liverpool and van Dijk are still hopeful that some kind of deal can be worked out and that Southampton will be willing to let the defender move to the club he clearly wants to be at. And fans, for the most part, believe that this is a deal that absolutely must happen for Liverpool to succeed.

Hyypia, however, believes that Liverpool can make do with the players they already have.

“I think Lovren and Matip are good players, and Klavan, it was his first year in England and he will adapt to the game for sure – and they are not bad players.

“I’m not sure if we need a centre-back, but definitely in some games I saw last year, that maybe the balance of the team could be a little bit different, or could be a little bit better, so that when we lose the ball, or when we sometimes are a little bit tired so that we can’t press it to take it back, that then we have a better balance in the game.”

“Defending is for the whole team it is not only the back four, it is not only the centre backs and the goalkeeper, it’s the whole team and I think in some games last season that maybe the balance wasn’t right and we conceded a few goals in a quick counter attack,” he added.

But at the end of the day, Hyypia, like the rest of us, is willing to trust Klopp and hope that, whatever happens, Liverpool come out the other end a stronger and more third-placed team.

“[Klopp] is the manager and he’s making the decisions and the rest of us, we only hope that he makes good decisions and we will be at least in the top three next year, because every year you want to improve and, hopefully, we will improve for next year and be in a better position.”