Virgil van Dijk will eventually win his battle to leave Southampton...but when will it happen?

Amid a litany of transfer sagas that have littered the craziest summer of spending in football history, Virgil van Dijk’s protracted attempts to leave Southampton has been the messiest for a variety of reasons.

Yahoo Sport has been given a glimpse into a relationship that began to break in the summer of 2016, as Van Dijk was crowned as Southampton’s Player of the Year and given a rapturous reception by all present at an jovial event staged at St Mary’s Stadium.

Southampton manager Ronald Koeman was in attendance as Van Dijk collected his award, with his comments as he signed a six-year contract with the club suggesting this Dutch defender was committed to the club for years to come.

“I’m so pleased, I’m so happy at Southampton. Me and my family have enjoyed it a lot this year. It’s been amazing. It’s only positive,” declared Van Dijk.

“The club is growing and I definitely want to grow with them, that’s how I feel. Hopefully we can make it happen. That’s the plan, to get a lot of achievements going and stay at Southampton.”

They were words welcomed by Southampton fans who had got used to seeing their star names departing the club at an alarmingly rapid rate in recent years, with Rickie Lambert, Luke Shaw, Adam Lallana, Dejan Lovren and Sadio Mane just some of the big names who had used Southampton as a stepping stone to the next stage of their career.

Southampton believed Van Dijk would be different, as they put their faith in a player who appeared to be grateful for the chance that had been presented to him as they granted him a pass to the Premier League when other clubs were wary of signing him from Celtic.

Yet the acrimonious departure of Koeman to Everton last summer sparked a chain of events that have trickled down to Van Dijk, with Southampton officials suspecting their latest star name was plotting a move away from the club earlier this year.

Van Dijk is signed up to the same management company that also represents Koeman and while he moved away from the agent that negotiated his six-year Southampton contract, his association with a group viewed suspiciously by Saints officials worked against him when it emerged talks over a transfer had been held with Liverpool and other clubs without permission.

Liverpool were forced to issue an embarrassing apology for their actions when Southampton reported them to the FA for ‘tapping up’ Van Dijk, with the stand-off created by that fall-out lingering to this day.

Southampton informed Van Dijk last May that he would not be allowed to leave the club this summer, yet he had already set his heart on a move to Liverpool at that point and personal terms were already in place for the transfer to take place.

As part of Liverpool’s apology for their unsolicited approach for Van Dijk, they promised not to make any further efforts to sign the player unless they were given encouragement by Southampton to do so.

That is why Southampton and not the player, his agent or Liverpool have been in pole position throughout negotiations of this transfer, with the six-year contract Van Dijk signed tying him to the club unless his employers decided to change their stance over selling their biggest names this summer.

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Terms on Van Dijk’s move to Liverpool are believed to have been agreed long ago and the player handed in a transfer request to try and hasten the move earlier this month, but all parties in this unseemly battle have been holding firm in their unshakable positions as the player has continued to train away from his first-team colleagues.

Southampton officials believe Van Dijk will return to their first team fold if he is still one of their employees when the transfer window shuts, but the damage done by his stand-off and all that went before suggests this is a working relationship that will not be healed.

In many ways, Southampton have already made their point and confirmed they will not be bullied into selling their star names by standing firm in the face of Van Dijk’s very public efforts to make a move, but the time will soon come to end this mess and allow all sides to move on.

Every player has a price and after our Yahoo Sport exclusive earlier this summer hinted an offer in excess of £70m may tempt Southampton to sell Van Dijk, they would be wise to open the door to that kind of offer before Thursday’s transfer deadline.

No one is winning in Van Dijk’s battle with Southampton and whether the players leaves before Thursday’s transfer deadline or in January, his time at the club will soon come to an end.