Manchester United signed Victor Lindelof over Virgil van Dijk

QPR striker Charlie Austin has revealed that Manchester United turned down the opportunity to sign Liverpool ace Virgil van Dijk in favour of signing Victor Lindelof.

United signed Lindelof from Benfica in June 2017, luring him to Old Trafford for an initial fee of £31million. The Sweden international had impressed during his time in Portugal and was capturing a fair amount of attention from across Europe.

At the same time, Van Dijk was making a name for himself at Southampton. After joining the Saints from Celtic in September 2015, it quickly became apparent that the Netherlands international had an extremely promising future ahead of himself, producing a string of outstanding performances.

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After several months of being linked with Liverpool, which featured a saga where they were reported to the Premier League for an illegal approach for him, the Anfield club finally secured Van Dijk's signature in January 2018 for a fee of £75million, making him, at that time, the most expensive defender of all-time.

However, it has now been revealed by Austin, who played with Van Dijk at Southampton, that United were interested in signing the centre-back in the of the summer of 2017, but favoured a move for Lindelof instead. Although it is impossible to predict how Van Dijk's career would have mapped out had he been signed by United, his fortunes in recent seasons compared to Lindelof's suggest that the Reds made a costly mistake.

"I remember at the back end of his Southampton career, we were sitting on the bench together at Chelsea away," Austin told talkSPORT. "I said to him 'come on, Virgil, what's going on, surely