Charlie Mulgrew played with a number of talented players at Celtic over both his spells at the club.
As a youngster, Mulgrew shared the changing room with the likes of Henrik Larsson, Chris Sutton and John Hartson before he left for Wolves.
But when Mulgrew returned to Celtic after signing for free from Aberdeen in 2010, the former Scotland defender was in different company but still played alongside some of the best players seen at the club.
And when Virgil van Dijk signed in 2013, Mulgrew admits he knew straight away Celtic had a serious player on their hands.
How Virgil van Dijk ‘strolled’ his first day at Celtic
67 Hail Hail discussed yesterday how van Dijk was named in the current list of 100 best footballers on the planet but it was a pre-season game against Crewe that Mulgrew knew the Dutchman was going to be a Celtic hero.
Mulgrew told Undr The Cosh, “Oh, his first day, he strolled forward with the ball. His first day, I’ll never forget it.
“£2.5m from Groningen we paid for him. There were a lot of signings like that at Celtic. It was a toss of a coin, what you were getting.
“But he looked the part, but then you never know. He strode forward with a game against Crewe. It was at the training ground and Crewe had come up for a pre-season friendly and he strode forward and hit the ball for about 35 yards on the underside of the bar and you were thinking, ‘This guy’s all right’.
“And he was brilliant. But his first competitive game was a Champions League qualifier against Karagandy and we got beat 2-0 away in Kazakhstan.
“And he got dropped for the home leg because he got bullied off of the striker. I remember it. And he got dropped.
“So this was the thing, he was used to playing in Holland and having a lot of the ball and probably a lot of it on the ground and all of a sudden we went there and it was just banging the ball long.
“But he learned his lesson well because he never played a return leg and then he obviously never left the team after that.”
Virgil van Dijk’s success at Celtic
Van Dijk spent two seasons at Celtic before he made his £13m switch to Southampton in 2015. Discovered by former Celtic boss Neil Lennon, the Dutchman made 115 appearances for the club.
Scoring 15 goals and creating seven assists, van Dijk won two league titles and a League Cup before departing Celtic to join The Saints.
The now Liverpool hero also helped the Hoops record wins against Ajax in the Champions League and helped Celtic achieve impressive draws against Inter Milan and RB Salzburg in the Europa League.
Now widely regarded as one of the best defenders in world football, van Dijk admitted that being at Celtic was the main reason he got his big moves to the English Premier League.
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