Leeds signed Bellusci over Van Dijk

Leeds United might’ve signed Virgil van Dijk however controversial former proprietor Massimo Cellino turned down the prospect in favour of one other deal.

That’s in response to Graham Bean, who labored as an advisor to the Italian supremo throughout his tenure at Elland Road, as he revealed that ex-manager David Hockaday urged the Dutch colossus while he was at Celtic.

“I got on well with Dave and he was a really nice bloke, as was his assistant Junior Lewis,” he advised the Daily Mail. “But the fact was they had been each out of their depth at Leeds.

Was Bellusci the worst signing of the Cellino period?

YES!

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NO!

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“Dave did, however, identify two outstanding players that would have transformed the club. One was a certain van Dijk, then at Celtic.”

Cellino went on to signal an unknown centre-back from the Serie A in Giuseppe Bellusci, who price round £1.6m. “Unfortunately Cellino ignored him and signed Giuseppe Bellusci on loan from Italian side Catania,” he added.

“Bellusci thrived on an undeserved hard-man reputation. He made his debut in a 4-1 defeat to Watford and things didn’t improve much from there – he wasn’t liked by many of his teammates or the club staff.”

The 33-year-old went on to make 61 appearances for the Yorkshire giants, scoring simply twice, earlier than leaving for Serie A outfit Empoli on mortgage simply two years later after which left the membership completely to Palermo on a free switch.

Meanwhile, in that point, Van Dijk swapped Celtic Park for Southampton earlier than sealing a then world-record £75m transfer to Liverpool in January 2018, the place he has since received the Premier League and Champions League.

It’s broadly thought that the Netherlands worldwide, who has been lauded as a “monster” by Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville, is among the many greatest defenders in world soccer, so had Cellino listened to the recommendation of his supervisor, Hockaday, then Van Dijk could nicely have been an absolute colossus for Leeds, relatively than Southampton.

What a catastrophic blunder that has turned out to be, although it’s not the one or worst that the unstable Cellino made throughout his time at Elland Road.

AND in different information, Lost 100% of duels: 13-pass flop proved Leeds’ determination proper in worldwide defeat…