Arsenal were reportedly offered Virgil van Dijk for £6m back when he was a Celtic player.

Van Dijk completed a £75m transfer to Liverpool on Wednesday night, ending months of speculation about his future. The centre-back had been linked with Arsenal before the move.

Rather than move on and focus on new targets, though, it’s time to linger on what could have been. According to John Cross of the Mirror, Arsenal could have had the Dutchman in their back-line for just £6m a couple of years ago.

Van Dijk was at Celtic at the time, and even back then, he was being linked with a move to Arsenal. However, while some will be keen to file this away as “one that got away”, there is a reason the move didn’t happen.

It wasn’t just Arsenal who could have signed for that amount, but Manchester City, Chelsea, Manchester United and Liverpool themselves as well. None of these clubs thought he’d be a worthwhile purchase.

It looks bad in hindsight, but at the time, they simply may not have rated a defender playing for the best team in Scotland all that highly. In the end, he’s now a Liverpool player. It’s time to move on.