Daniel Vanderkamp reveals Liverpool are back in for Virgil van Dijk

A former football lawyer has claimed that Liverpool are back in the market for Southampton defender Virgil van Dijk after being warned for tapping up the Dutch international earlier in the summer.

The Reds had made the Saints defender their top target for the summer before pulling out of the chase for the centre-back after receiving a complaint about a potential illegal approach. Jurgen Klopp's men had then made a hasty apology to Southampton after stating that they will not take the matter up any further.

However, French lawyer Daniel Vanderkamp, who has previously worked alongside Liverpool in their bid to sign Christian Benteke from Aston Villa in 2015, has revealed that the Reds have opened a dialogue with the Saints once again — in a bid to bring the former Celtic man to Merseyside.

"Got told things are moving along now with LFC and Southampton. I don't know if he's handed in a request, just that the clubs are back negotiating," Vanderkamp tweeted, as quoted by the Liverpool Echo.

Van Dijk's form prior to his injury has seen him attract interest from the top clubs in England. Apart from Liverpool, league leaders Chelsea, Pep Guardiola's Manchester City and Everton are in the race for his signature. However, the Saints' stance in keeping their top player has sounded off a lot of clubs over his pursuit. The Saints were reportedly holding out for a transfer fee of £70m ($89m), as reported by the Sun.

However, Liverpool are reportedly back in the race but there has been no disclosure over such a scenario from Klopp, who stated that he is as much in the dark as the others. The Reds have completed two signings thus far this window, in the form of Mohamed Salah and Dominic Solanke with a few others on the horizon.

"Am I allowed to talk about this [signing Van Dijk]? I am not," Klopp revealed when asked about the Dutch defender. "Pretty much everything I could say would be a mistake. You or your colleagues wrote everything about this a few weeks ago."

"I was in Iceland by the way when somebody told me this was in the newspaper. Nothing happened since then, all good so far, so I can't say anything about this."