On Wednesday, Liverpool smashed their transfer record by signing Southampton's Virgil Van Dijk in a £75m transfer.The 26-year-old Dutchman, who will officially become a Liverpool player on January 1, is now the most expensive defender of all-time.Van Dijk, who desperately wanted to move to Anfield in the summer, is the sixth player to join Liverpool from Southampton since 2014."I think there is a dearth of top-class centre-backs throughout world football hence why so many clubs wanted him [Van Dijk] and the transfer fee is so high," said Liverpool legend Jamie Carragher."People will look at the transfer that normally strikers go for but as with any transfer fee if he performs well and does his job it will be worth it."The one centre-back when the transfer fee felt so huge at the time was 15 years ago when Rio Ferdinand went to Manchester United."But he repaid that. He was Manchester United's top centre-back, won trophies and was there for 10 years.
"That is what Van Dijk has to do, take Liverpool to trophies and be Liverpool's No 1 centre-back for the next decade or so."
What Klopp said when United signed Pogba
In 2016, Manchester United broke the world transfer record on Juventus midfielder Paul Pogba.
The Frenchman re-joined the Red Devils in a whopping £89.3m transfer and some rival Premier League managers had some stern things to say about it.
One of those managers was Liverpool's eccentric German Jurgen Klopp, who suggested that he would not spend so frivolously - even if he had the funds at his disposal!
"That is how everybody in football understands it," said Klopp in July 2016. "You always want to have the best, but building the group is necessary to be successful.
"Other clubs can go out and spend more money and collect top players.
"I want to do it differently. I would even do it differently if I could spend that money."
"The day that this is football, I'm not in a job anymore, because the game is about playing together."
That looks more than a little bit hypocritical now and plenty of Manchester United fans picked up on his 18-month old comments.