NEIL LENNON believes his former Celtic defender and Champions League winner Virgil van Dijk can feel very hard done by after he missed out on the Best FIFA Men’s player award on Monday evening.
The Liverpool star was pipped to the post by Lionel Messi who scored 51 goals in 50 games for Barcelona last season helping then to the La Liga title.
However, if it wasn’t for Virgil van Dijk and the Liverpool team the Catalans may have also had the Champions League wrapped up. It was a monumental collapse by Barcelona at Anfield which seen the red prevail against the odds in the semi-final of last years competition.
Neil Lennon was asked his thoughts on the award and he may have a slight bias when it comes to Virgil but believed the centre-back had done it all in the last year.
“Messi is Messi and if you look at the numbers from Messi we probably take it for granted what he does because he just does it so well on a regular basis,” Lennon told CelticTV.
“But I thought Virgil was the outstanding player in domestic and European football this year or the previous year or whatever way the calendar turns out, and I thought he deserved to win so I’m disappointed for him.”
Neil Lennon signed Virgil for Celtic from FC Groningen for £2.7m back during his first spell as boss. What a steal that was.
Southampton got the player from Celtic for £14.13m according to TransferMarkt and that was still a steal.
Virgil eventually went to Anfield for £76m. Not bad for someone who played two seasons in a pub league.
