NO PRICE BARCELONA CAN PAY TO BUY COUTINHO, SAYS KLOPP
Manager insists Liverpool are not desperate to be in a selling position for valued midfielder
Jurgen Klopp has insisted Liverpool will not entertain any bids for Philippe Coutinho after the club rejected an improved £90 million (Dh429.5m) offer from Barcelona for the playmaker.
The Catalan side, fresh from last week’s €222m (Dh955.6m) sale of Neymar, increased their bid for the Brazilian on Wednesday evening having had an earlier €80m proposal rejected last month.
Coutinho, who joined Liverpool from Inter Milan for £8.5million in 2013, signed a new five-year deal with the Merseyside outfit in January that did not include a buy-out clause. However, Klopp is adamant that Liverpool have no need to cash in on any of their prize assets.
Speaking to Sky Germany yesterday, Klopp said: “Liverpool is not a club that has to sell players. That is set in stone. So what they offer in the end doesn’t matter.
“From a financial standpoint, there is no price limit to let him go; no price at which we are ready to give in. Our goal is to have the best possible team. So we want to keep our guys and add new ones. That is our plan.”
Although reportedly interested in joining Barcelona, Coutinho has not agitated for a move. “Today, no player on the planet is unsellable,” Klopp said. “But a transfer is also a question of timing and if you have the opportunity and the need to react to such a transfer.
“Also you have to ask, if you have the time to react.
“But just because of one request of one club, we don’t have to think about that. We are not in that situation.”
Klopp’s desire to keep his influential playmaker is understandable.
Coutinho’s 13 goals and seven assists helped inspire Liverpool to a fourth-placed finish in the league last season and thus a return to Uefa Champions League football, assuming they can overcome Hoffenheim in a two-legged play-off, with the first match in Germany next week.
“When we finished last season in fourth position everybody was really happy about it,” he told reporters in England. “It was really a good result for a big effort.
“We knew also there would be a qualification game, and now it is coming up.
“But the first challenge we have to face is playing Watford, even though everybody is thinking about the Champions League qualifiers.
“So Watford is the first target, and we have a few more days to prepare for this game.”
There are doubts over whether Coutinho will be available against Watford at Vicarage Road, with him having been receiving treatment this week for a back issue. “We are in a good shape,” Klopp said.
“The players are in a good mood, the attitude in all the training sessions was really good – yes, there have been one or two little injuries and one bigger [Adam Lallana’s thigh problem], but that is how life is.
“We showed it in Dublin again that we are in a good shape. So everything is in a good way – but of course now we have to deliver, and we know that, so we are ready for it. The freshness is coming back. We are really excited.”
Liverpool is not a club that has to sell players. That is set in stone. So what they offer in the end doesn’t matter JURGEN KLOPP