The old adage is that you never say never, that is very true in football, but perhaps Mauricio Pellegrino should not have been so honest in his press conference ahead of the trip to Liverpool.

All the talk in the media ahead of the visit to Anfield will of course focus on Virgil Van Dijk, so perhaps Mauricio Pellegrino should have picked his words more carefully when asked about his Dutch defender ahead of Saturday's game.

The Saints manager refused to rule out Van Dijk being sold in January when asked.

“You never know because the market when we talk about money everybody has got a price.

“The budget to sign players, the biggest teams have got money to try to sign players.

“I can’t decide about that. This is a question for our owners.”

“I don’t know, I can’t control the market."

“I cannot control the whisper about my player because we have got a lot of good players, and most of the teams want to sign them.

“The majority of the teams in Europe want to try to improve their squad and the market is huge now around the world, and information is enormous right now.

“We can’t control this and we have to be focused.

“Right now Virgil is thinking about us but a lot of players are thinking about other clubs, we are thinking about maybe other players to try and bring here next year.

“Everybody is focussed on their area to try to bring the best players possible for our club. It is something that happens every single transfer window.”

In essence Pellegrino has said very little, he has said nothing tat has not been said before by a thousand other managers about a thousand other players at a thousand other clubs, but the Van Dijk saga has not been your standard transfer, being surrounded by major shenanigans and dodgy approaches and meetings.

He would have been better served to have batted off the questions by saying tat Van Dijk is a Saints players and that he remains focused on that.

Now the fact that Pellegrino has not done that means that every media outlet and closely followed by every ex Liverpool player you can name, will be claiming that a move to Liverpool is close.

However that he will go to Anfield is far from certain, Chelsea, Manchester City and Barcelona are all also being linked and all have more clout than Liverpool at present, add to that that Saints may feel that a move to Anfield is totally out of the question due to Liverpool's behaviour and things are far from as the media would have you believe.

But Saints are not naive, they know the player has ambitions and they wil be looking for a way out that leaves them having saved face and done the best for Southampton Football Club, they have done that in the first nstance by standing firm to Liverpool last summer, but if they could now cash in on the player to another club in January and reinvest the money in a quality replacement, they may feel that this is the best ending to a sorry sage that has made every decent football fan despair for the way the game has become.

But it would have been better for Saints if Pellegrino had been less honest and more discreet yesterday.

Photo: Action Images

LordDZLucan added 08:43 - Nov 17 Top teams don't sell players in January. If the club has any ambition then it should be making it quite clear through the media that nobody will be leaving in January. Then we can get on and concentrate on the football rather than Pellegrino having to spend every media conference between now and the end of January talking about van Dijk.
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SaintPaulVW added 09:00 - Nov 17 While I commend his honesty, there is a time to just stfu. Agree VVD is a distraction, agree he could go in January but only for an eye watering fee, but does this really need to be raised before a game against the team that wants him. MP could lose the dressing room if he doesn't wise up soon. Coming across as remote and uninspiring, after this week's Guardian interview, this comment doesn't help. Can easily see him going soon if he doesn't get a bit more savvy. Which means 6 months wasted. Again.

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dirk_doone added 10:21 - Nov 17 “I can’t decide about that. This is a question for our owners.” Perhaps Pellegrino is hinting, out of desperation, that he has no control over the club's transfer activity. Kat has gt her 210 million, which should keep her satisfied for a while but now Mr Gao has to get back the money he borrowed in order to pay her.
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dirk_doone added 10:44 - Nov 17 Incidentally, what were his alternatives if he already knows Les is trying to sell van Dijk to Liverpool in January? 'No comment,' which would have been as good as saying 'Yes', or 'No', which would have resulted in all of our fans calling hm a liar in a few weeks' time?
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landerwal added 11:09 - Nov 17 Whatever MP said at this particular press conference, given the whole sorry saga of VVD's "transfer" in the summer, was going to make headlines. Football comes a poor second to media headlines of dressing room bust ups, the latest transfer rumour, which manager is getting the sack next etc, etc. The on going, will he or won't he leave Southampton story will never leave the back pages until he does go. Pellegrino did his best given that he has little influence in events. Owners, agents and football club executives are the prime movers nowadays and as usual all we get is silence from them.

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Sanguin added 12:33 - Nov 17 I don't know what planet you're living on Nick, I can tell from MP's comments that he's clearly saying that Liverpool, and only Liverpool, can sign VVD for £70m in January. Journalists don't just pull these headlines out of their arses you know, they always have a firm basis in fact.
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simmo400 added 12:39 - Nov 17 Don’t see the problem. Every player has a price. Saints will wait until any halfway season tickets are sold first though 👍🏻
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SaintBrock added 13:33 - Nov 17 Nothing wrong with a bit of honesty and why would he say something he knows is not true just to curry favour with our fans most of whom have written him off as manager anyway and have been pretty outspoken about it. We have a new owner now, keeping vD here during the transition was essential to Leibherr to protect her investment and making sure that the Gao's came through with the money. Now vD is just one more item on e Bay to help cover Gao's £200m debt.

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SaintBrock added 13:38 - Nov 17 Plenty of evidence that Pellegrino has already lost the dressing room and if we get tonked 3 or 4 nil tomorrow, there's a very good chance he'll get is P45 on Monday
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underweststand added 13:58 - Nov 17 MY position on this is unchanged since the summer. YES VvD is a good player, and an ambitious one, and can't see him being satisfied with a mid table finish with Saints and Liverpool still in Europe and a World Cup coming up. I fully expect him to go - after a lot of sighing and wringing of hands -and for the fee he's likely to command...Saints could buy half a new team-at the prices we normally pay out. I can't believe that we can't field a good CB pairing from; Yoshida, Stephens and Hoedt plus ...whoever else we buy in the summer to replace Virgil. I would add Bednarek to that list, but not until he'd got a good season in U23's under his belt.

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SanMarco added 18:07 - Nov 17 VVD has no need to worry about the World Cup underweststand. We made a 'statement' in August - to sell him for the same money to the same team in January would undermine that 'statement' totally. We need the bigger boys to come in. I really think who we BUY is more important than whether we sell VVD in January. Another window where we don't properly and sensibly strengthen in the attacking areas really could be disastrous. It is very strange being a Saints supporter at the moment - the owner is an unknown quantity, half the team want to leave and the other half don't seem to be very good and the manager is already dreading seeing Big Sam drive into the car park. Happy days.

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brownk added 08:25 - Nov 18 It's amazing how so many fans make amazing statements about MP losing the dressing room, players wanting to leave etc etc. These are based on no factual evidence and it is purely guess work and quite frankly laughable! VVD wants to leave, sell him to anyone except LFC and reinvest. Criticising the new owner is ridiculous as no one invests 210 mill if they are not committed to the Club. Fans need to stop creating a crisis, because there is so much that is good about our club!

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WanderingSaint added 10:33 - Nov 18 With any luck we’ll hear on Monday his “honest” explanation about how he couldn’t cut it in the EPL and lost his job.
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halftimeorange added 11:21 - Nov 18 I'll be very surprised if VVD doesn't play his socks off today, assuming there is no pre-transfer agreement with Liverpool which means he sits on the bench. A storming, rather than a sorry performance will make the Reds and, indeed, any other suitors want him even more. It will be interesting to see what his attitude to today's game is. Indifference by Virgil to the outcome will affect the morale of the whole team, as will a thrashing. It will further demonstrate Pellegrino's problems in man management.

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SaintBrock added 12:41 - Nov 18 brownk it's not guess work, some of us are experts at body language and reading facial expressions! Anyway they've found the dressing room at Calshot Spit!
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