Frustrated at not ceasing the opportunity to leave the Anfield club last summer, Philippe Coutinho has finally agreed terms with the Catalan giants to begin his new journey in La Liga..
Barcelona have announced the signing of Philippe Coutinho from Liverpool for a fee of £142 million in a 5 and a half year deal worth £12.1 million a season. This will come as no surprise to the Merseyside club as the Brazilian has expressed a desire that he doesn’t want to play for the Anfield club again, and has refused to fly out to Dubai with the Liverpool squad. Furthermore the images at the beginning of the season depicting a glum faced Coutinho, in the light of his failed summer transfer to the Spanish giants, was hardly a promising sight either.
Barca had attempted to break Liverpool down in the summer but the Merseyside club proved to be tough negotiators, turning down a barrage of ludicrous offers from the Catalan club. The Brazilian however was clearly deeply unhappy about having to stay at Anfield, and so it’s no surprise that this transfer saga has reared its head once again. The Brazilian’s immense desire to join the Blaugrana however was palpable, as Jürgen Klopp has stated ‘Philippe was insistent with me, the owners and even his team-mates that this was a move he was desperate to make happen’. Clearly the young Brazilian was itching to make the transition, and so coupled with Barcelona’s hunger to bring him to the club this meant the story was only likely to go one way.
Strangely however, recently there were some discrepancies in the Barcelona camp about whether it would be a good idea to bring Coutinho to the club. The Spanish outfit was actually unsure about whether they could meet the gigantic fee that they’d need to pay for the midfielder, and furthermore the fact that Coutinho would be unable to play in the Champions League also raised doubts about the transfer going ahead. Lastly, there were concerns that the purchase of the Brazilian would also serve to marginalise the likes of Denis Suarez in the Barcelona squad.
Nevertheless, it must be said that Barcelona have obviously been damaged by the sale of Neymar in the summer, and so have always been feeling the need to fight back from this. With 222 million Euros to spend, the purchases of Ousmane Dembele and Philippe Coutinho will repair a lot of the harm that’s been done as a result of Neymar’s high profile transfer away from the Nou Camp. Moreover with a cup tied Coutinho in their squad, it’s likely that the Catalan club will be leaving their rivals Real Madrid further and further behind in the La Liga title race.
‘It is with great reluctance that we – as a team and club – prepare to say farewell to a good friend, a wonderful person and a fantastic player in Coutinho’. These words from Jürgen Klopp evidently show a good degree of disappointment, however the tone also portrays a sense of inevitability about the Brazilian’s move away from Anfield. Moreover in the light of Virgil van Dijk’s big money transfer to Merseyside, the Liverpool faithful will not know what to make of this rollercoaster January transfer window, and will be unsure about whether their club’s fortunes will be better or worse off in the coming months.
Tito Simonelli
CoffeeWithCantona 