Former Manchester City star Joleon Lescott has said that Liverpool target Virgil van Dijk and Diego Costa will suffer this season due to the controversies that they were involved in during the summer.
Van Dijk was strongly linked with a move to Liverpool and handed in a transfer request to Southampton to try and force through a move. However the Saints refused to sell and in the end a sale ended up not taking place.
Costa meanwhile has been in Brazil after being deemed surplus to requirements by Antonio Conte at Chelsea. The Spanish international even accused the London giants of treating him like a criminal after Conte informed him via text that he was surplus to requirements.
The 28-year-old Costa has indicated that he wishes to re-join former club Atletico Madrid, however a deal was prevented as the Spanish club were banned from making transfers this summer.
While speaking on Sky Sports about van Dijk and Costa, Lescott said as reported by The Express, “I’d say probably Diego and Virgil van Dijk (will struggle the most out of players who wanted to leave). Due to the fact them not being able to train with the first-team and play any games
“The rest of them have obviously made it clear they do want to move but they’ve been able to train and still perform at a level that is not that far away.
“A lot of them have played international games so they’ve still got some level of fitness. So I think for them two it will be hard.”
