Pierre van Hooijdonk backs Virgil van Dijk for Netherlands start

Pierre van Hooijdonk has said that Virgil van Dijk is better than a number of his Netherlands teammates.

Van Dijk recently completed a move from Celtic to Southampton and van Hooijdonk believes that the 24-year-old is one of his country's better defenders.

"Virgil is better than the boys in the Eredivisie", van Hooijdonk told FOX Sports.

"We sometimes like to think that the Netherlands is like a second Premier League, but that's obviously not the case."

Van Dijk is yet to win an international cap for the Netherlands, but is in line for his first appearance after being named in the squad for their qualifiers against Iceland and Turkey.