Neil Warnock has revealed that he was talked out of signing Virgil van Dijk for Crystal Palace by his chief scout.

The current Cardiff City boss claimed that he had been keeping tabs on the Dutch defender before his £12 million move to Southampton, and asked his chief scout to go and run the rule over the Celtic centre back.

Van Dijk this week sealed a £75 million move to Liverpool, due to go through on 1 January next year.

Virgil van Dijk scores the opening goal in the Scottish Cup semi-final match between Celtic and Inverness CT in April 2015. Picture: John Devlin

In quotes posted on Twitter by Alan Brazil’s Sport Breakfast account, Warnock said: “When I was at Palace I went after a centre half at Celtic called van Dijk and they want £6 million, so I said ‘we’ve got to buy him don’t we?’

“But the chief scout went to see him and said ‘he’s not very quick; it’s Scottish football’. That was before Southampton came in for him.”

Celtic will benefit from van Dijk’s move to Anfield thanks to a sell-on clause; the Hoops will pocket around £7.5 million from the sale.

The sell-on clause will mean Celtic have raked in nearly £20 million for a player they initially signed for just £2.6 million from Groningen in 2013.

Ex-Crystal Palace boss: Scout warned me not to sign Virgil van Dijk