, Steve Bruce tried to sign Virgil van Dijk for Hull City in 2015

Steve Bruce tried to sign Virgil van Dijk for Hull City in 2015

Steve Bruce has revealed he tried to sign Liverpool star Virgil van Dijk for Hull City in 2015.

Bruce, who was in charge of the Tigers when they signed Harry Maguire and Andy Robertson, has said that he wanted to bring the now Champions League winner to the KCOM Stadium from Celtic.

The former Hull boss is now in charge of Premier League side Newcastle United, who face Liverpool this weekend.

Bruce has said, as per a report by I News: “Yes, I could have taken him to Hull. I had dinner with Kenny Dalglish and the owner of Celtic, Dermot Desmond, in Barbados – I’m name-dropping now – and the owner of Celtic was waxing lyrical about the best players he’s had.”

“He was saying ‘[Henrik] Larsson is definitely the best player that I’ve seen play for Celtic in my ownership, [but] what I can’t understand is, nobody’s gone for Van Dijk’. I thought ‘that’s interesting, he’s seen a lot of football over the last 12 years’, so I went and we tried. I tried to get him before he went to Southampton [for] about £10million, £12million. I was nowhere near getting him. I tried, but I had no chance.”

When asked about Robertson, now van Dijks’ Liverpool teammate, Bruce said: “Stan Ternent, my chief scout, said ‘I’ve just seen this kid – we’ve got to take him’, we did our homework, I went to see him and we took him.”

It was a little bit of a gamble. I remember him arriving with his mum, holding her hand. To be fair to him, we had a couple of injuries and I threw him in. He had an unbelievable debut against QPR. He hasn’t looked back, has he? He’s been quite remarkable.”

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