I was never tapped up because everyone was scared of Big Jock!
HAVING received £198m from PSG for the transfer of Neymar, added to the riches they already have, Barcelona have a massive war chest to buy players in this transfer window.
Liverpool’s Philippe Coutinho is on their radar as they address the void left by the Brazilian’s departure.
Their desire to sign Coutinho is a massive compliment to the player.
Philippe has been absolutely fantastic in the past three or four years, and his level of play and consistency has attracted attention.
He is respected by his teammates and loved by the fans. He has so much going for him at Liverpool.
Jurgen Klopp has made it clear he doesn’t want to lose Philippe and the owners, The Fenway Sports Group, left everyone in no doubt that they have no intention of selling the player.
It goes without saying that I would also rather see Philippe be part of the Liverpool line-up for a long time to come.
My view is he will remain at Anfield. But if he does happen to leave, then nobody at Liverpool or Jurgen should be criticised.
At the end of the day, transfers can happen for a number of reasons.
I’m sure Barcelona would rather have kept Neymar than see the transfer to PSG go through, so it just goes to show that you can never rule anything out.
It’s been suggested Phillipe has handed in a transfer request but I’m not privy to the full facts of that particular allegation.
What I do know is that it’s changed days from when I was a player.
Sure, transfers are part and parcel of football. I was involved in only one as a player and it’s been well documented in the past week because it was the 40th anniversary of when I left Celtic to join Liverpool in a £440,000 deal.
They were the only club I ever spoke to. There may well have been other teams interested, and maybe one or two bid for me when I was at Parkhead.
But I couldn’t honestly tell you. What I do know 100% is that I was never tapped up. Not once.
I know it’s illegal to approach a player behind his employer’s back, but it went on back then and still does.
It never happened to me. And I think one of the reasons why was because other clubs and managers were scared in case my boss, big Jock Stein, found out.
So, they would always have made moves by the book.
I’m told that maybe Leeds United were interested, but I never spoke to them. Don Revie and big Jock were friends so perhaps they had a conversation about me.
In the end, I went to Liverpool. Big Jock had respect for Bob Paisley and vice-versa.
The fee paid for me was a big one back then, but nothing compared to nowadays.
With the television money and wealthy owners from abroad buying English clubs, the landscape has completely changed.
The £198m fee for Neymar is absolutely off the scale. We have been aware for three or four years now that some of the price tags for players were ridiculous, but this deal takes it over the edge.
There is no doubt he is an outstanding footballer, but he was only the second or third-best player at Barca.
The buy-out clause was astronomical and I would imagine the Spanish club would never have expected any other club to be willing to spend that amount of money.
The other thing that probably took most people aback was that very few players want to leave Barcelona or Real Madrid as they are usually the clubs who get the very best players in the business and then keep them.
So, for Neymar to move to PSG and play in the French Ligue 1 is a little bit surprising.
He will make his debut today in a league game against Guingamp and I wish him all the best.
PSG have taken the whole thing to a different level and they clearly want to win the Champions League.
So they are building a squad like the Harlem Globetrotters!
They have Thiago Silva, Dani Alves, Marco Veratti, Edinson Cavani, Julian Draxler and now Neymar. They are also being linked with another move of more than £120m to sign Kylian Mbappe from Monaco.
Where do they all fit in? How do you keep all of the players happy? Having so many big names can also bring its problems.
The ambition from their owners is clear for all to see. But despite the superstars they have at their disposal, I don’t think they are favourites for the tournament.
Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich will be the teams to beat and I fancy all of the English teams to do really well in this campaign.