How is he better than all of those? He's severely overrated in my opinion. You pay that sort of money for the best of the best, like what we're doing with Sandro. You can't say he's better than CBs who have consistently played in Europe and have started for their NT for years. VVD isn't on their level just yet, he's only really had one really good half of a season in a pretty defensive Southampton system where any good defender would do well. What is he better at than Koscielny, Luiz and Bailly?
I've watched this guy since he was playing in Holland (I'm Dutch) and Scotland, I've probably seen him more times than you. I'm not saying he's a bad defender, he's a good defender, but he isn't this top 3 defender you guys make him out to be. He hasn't proven any of that over his career so far.