Southampton and Netherlands defender Virgil van Dijk had an agreement in place with two of Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal, according to Gabriele Marcotti.

The Italian journalist was responding to a fan questioning how so many people said that van Dijk would join one of the three clubs, when in the end, the centre-back stayed put at Southampton.

Marcotti explained why on Twitter: “He had a deal in place with two of those clubs… but sometimes stuff happens, as you saw.

“Clubs go to agents direct all the time. And in this specific case, as u know from LFC’s statement, that’s what happened. Doesn’t change the fact that VVD reached deals with other clubs. And when that happens, players tend to move, no?”

If Marcotti’s claims are correct, we could probably assume that Liverpool were one of the two clubs, since he references that we know from Liverpool’s statement that they had made contact with van Dijk’s agent.

In the statement, Liverpool apologised to Southampton and announced they were ending their interest in van Dijk. This certainly implies they had done something they shouldn’t have in regards to the player, but didn’t specify exactly what.

As for which of the other two clubs van Dijk had an agreement with, the most likely option is Chelsea, since Arsenal reportedly didn’t have any room in the wage budget for new signings anyway.

However, there were rumours of a meeting between Arsène Wenger and the Southampton centre-back earlier in the summer, reportedly taking place before the big-money signing of Alexandre Lacazette, so who knows?