Skillfull, Hopefully Interesting Talents: The Summer 19 Transfer Forum

For a loan move, pay his wages for 2 years and then decline the buy option, why not? Better than nothing, he can play through the middle and cover at LW, link up with Bobby very nicely. IIRC the attack under Klopp was basically never as electric as it was when he could deploy those 4 guys together, Coutinho Bobby Salah Mane, for the 3 months before Coutinho got sold.

In terms of actually paying for him, I would say no... I see no reason to help out Barcelona. And they have no incentive to give LFC some great deal. If he could be had for 60M, why not, but that doesn't seem plausible.

Neither does the 2 year loan, considering it's coming out of Italy.

 

I can't believe you guys are still going strong on this thread. Transfer chatter is decidedly boring this summer.

I get fans are desperate for the club appear to capitalize on the where we are right now by buying big this summer, but we simply don't need to. Our current squad has basically matched city in the league for a season and a half. We made it to 2 straight CL finals winning one. We've lost 3 league games in 2 seasons. 2 squad players have left; Sturridge and Moreno. Brewster appears more than capable of matching the 2 goals Sturridge gave us last year, and Milner can easily cover the 0 league minutes Moreno played.

Our GK, defense and DMs are the best defensive unit in the game right now. That alone is going ensure we are in every game. We have players capable of getting goals all over the squad.

Enjoy the summer. If we get someone new in great. If not, it's more money in the bank for #mbappe2020.

 

Coutinho isn't coming back, regardless of how much his agent talks up a move and how desperate Barca are for the cash. The club isn't spending 100m on an attacker who won't start and is the same age as the other 3. It makes zero sense.

 

I'd be OK with it. He wanted to move to a club that is seen as more prestigious in his homeland and were offering him a tonne of money to do so plus having spent a lot of time in both Liverpool and Barcelona I can understand why his family wanted him to move.

Excellent player, great shot and intelligent. Those are the pros.

The cons are his wages, he's likely on a far bigger contract than he was at Liverpool and his importance to us has diminished, he'd not be a guaranteed starter but an option in heavily rotated midfield and sometimes attack, so it is unlikely we'd match it and it is unlikely he'd take a pay cut.

The major con is helping Barca out, they are shady as ******** in the transfer market and another season without the Champions League will see another big spending spree for them and they will be doing the best to disruprt our players. Salah and Mane will be options to replace Suarez, VVD to replace Messi, Fab to replace Busquets.

I see no reason gifting their bank balance by loaning Phil and helping them out.

 

that was funny!!

 

definitely second all that ......

 

This times 10. I can't wait for them to become irrelevant again once Messi retires.

 

the skills he left with we could use. the big ?? is -- can Ox and Naby supply those passes to unlock parked-bus defences, and contribute goals from MF and FKs?

nothing says we'd be paying 100% of his wage. clubs can agree to split it.

I get your point, but that's too much on the emotional side. if we get him at reasonable wage and he shows up and contributes, I don't really care what Barca get out of it.

 

if they get Neymar (highly doubt that) and with Griezman, who knows ....

 

Then they'd throw in Suarez too. Boy, if we could only get Brendan Rodgers back. . .

asitis

 

hilarious!

 

Cout was an amazing player but the games most of his goals came in we were not struggling to score. In 0-0's he was equally as poor as anyone and sometimes his constant long range shooting actually hurt us.

He averaged 5 league assists a season for us (Ox got 7 in his first season for us) and in his last (half) season for us scored an amazing 12 goals in 20 games. None of them were match winners, the two most important were first half goals in away draws, but his importance as a matchwinner is overstated. His world class goals seems to have inflated his importance as a player, but most of his goals came when we were already in the lead.

He looks great in a free flowing attacking team, he struggled against teams who parked the bus. We've actually improved against such teams last season due to the change in system as the centre mids hold their positon and the full backs attack and cross much more.

The teams we struggle against are able to defend against Coutinho's throughh balls, at which he is a master, they come undone from TAA's and Robertson's crosses. I don't think he dramatically improves our attack or secures a starting spot, but a rotation spot in a heavily rotated team.

Hey, if Barca are willing to subsidize a third of his wages then sign him up on loan. But somehow I can't see that happening, he's not yet a leech to their club.

If they loan him, and so far it is only paper speculation, it is not because he's shit it is because they can't afford him for FFP reasons (due to their astronomical wage bill or wanting more funds for Neymar). Loaning him and paying for him to play for someone else defeats the purpose, accounting wise it makes more sense to sell him for 60-70 million instead, which I'm sure there will be takers at that price.

It is not emotional, it is practical. Had Phil stayed we may have won the champions League last season, him leaving in winter screwed us and our midfield and attack were knackered and missing for that game. That right there is millions lost on Barca destabilizing one of our players.

Suarez we lost on less than his market value. Both Suarez and Coutinho sulked their way out of the team, one of them doing so for half a season, because Barca have less ethics than almost every other club in the world when it comes to transfers.

 

There's all that, and there's Naby Keita , who is a more direct dribbler, who is more likely to shake up a parked bus scenario thatn Coutinho whose tendency is to drift dribble across the field more laterally than forwards ....

It's funny, when we were about to lose him I was aghast at the prospect, but right now I'm not particularly in favour of having him back - I'm rathe rlooking forward to seeing what Ox and Naby can inject next year ...
coutinho coming won't help figure that out.....

 

I'm not one to employ blandishments, but I just want to say that I profoundly hope that you, Pikas, do not take a leave of absence, again.

 

It was also a different side that was shipping goals and draw not-great teams. 2 draws with Sevilla, draw with Spartak Moscow, among others.

I'd take him for cover but not for what Barca surely would want to sell him for. This is all rubbish, I'd eat my shoe if Coutinho comes back on a 2 year loan with a buy option. That's giving away his prime to get his wages off their books. Even for Barca, that's idiotic.

 

I don’t think it makes sense for him to go anywhere... but if he went somewhere it would need to be a sale to someone other than LFC. They need to save some face IMO.

I don’t know how much indication there is that he wants to come back... we are just relying on poor clickbait for info on this, it just all seems like BS to me.

Don’t know what Neymar is doing but if Phil really does want a new start he makes sense as a makeweight there.

 

Did a little digging looking for the clauses in Coutinho's transfer.

The following seem generally agreed:
• £18 million for Coutinho’s first 100 matches 

He's made 55

• £4.5m at each 25-match interval to total that £18m
Not happening now

• £4.5m due if Barca qualify for 2018/19 Champions League
Booked

• Another £4.5m if they qualify for the 19/20 Champions League
Booked

• A further £4.5m for winning the Champions League in 18/19
Looks like we did ourselves out of £4.5m by the audacity of 4-0

• And £4.5m again if they win it in 19/20
This could be really interesting. Is this clause about Barca or Coutinho? If Coutinho and we win next season's CL, we vacuum up all that CL money AND Barca have to pay us £4.5m!

 

apart from Stevie, Coutinho has been the only midfield-goal threat we've had for a very long time and it's areal weakness for a team at our level. both Ox and Naby are still question marks for injury-recovery reasons, plus Naby has yet to prove himself (a) in Klopp's team and (b) vs Prem opposition.

(BTW getting a goal that gets us a draw is worth something !)

I don't think he would either, but for me he's a great option since no other player we have is like him and would throw a different challenge to the opposition.

I agree re the FBs obviously ... but we can't rely on them being able to do it every time so options are good to have.

I don't think a club can decide to not do business with a club coz they pissed them off in the past and don't like their shenanigans. if a deal makes sense for you, do it. otherwise you run the risk of "cutting off your nose to spite your face".

agree with that.

for me it boils down to: if he had no history with us, would we want him? and the answer must be "hell, yeah."

having said all that .... I think the chances of this happening are microscopic and I don't care if he never comes back. the only reason we're using up pixels on this, is that there's not much else to talk about !!

 

Thanks for all this folks. It has been really boring these last few weeks.

 

And of course the Daily Fail keeps the story going. Never let it be said they'd miss out on embellishing a good tale.

'It would be a near-impossible move': Philippe Coutinho's agent says his affinity to 'fantastic' Liverpool would rule out Manchester United switch

Coutinho left Anfield for Barcelona in January 2018 after making over 200 appearances, but is already being linked with a return to the Premier League.

Full Story:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...y-fantastic-Liverpool-rule-United-switch.html

 

That is not actually true. Not if you actually look at his positon on the pitch.

13-14 Roders played gung ho football, cared nothing about defense and Phil played in midfield but a midfield that was encouraged to attack. He scored 5 league goals

14-15 Having lost Suarez and with Sturridge frequently injured and Balotelli mostly on the bench Phil was given a more advanced positon with Henderson, Gerrard, Allen, Can, and Lucas playing in the middle. Often more part of the attack than midfield (He and Lallana seemed more to have free roles when they played). He scored 5 league goals.

15-16 Benteke, Firminho and Ings were brought, Sterling and Balo gone and once again Phil was more apart of the attack than he was the midfield with Sturrdige, Benteke both missing most of the season for various reasons. He scored 8 league goals

16-17 Klopp's first full season and we have now transitioned to the 4-3-3 we are more familiar with with Firmino, Sane and Coutinho being in attack. Cout was the deepest of the three (Firminho has since taken that role) but he was primarily a forward that season with Can, Henderson, Milner and Wijnnaldum in the middle 3, Lallana and Lucas backing them . He scored 13 league goals.

Phil had Stevie like numbers for two seasons and only because he was not playing in midfield, but in attack with few defensive responsibilities at least not how we'd now call it (being a 4-3-3 team). Sterling did more than Phil did when he played for us.

If you play Milner in midfiled he scores the same as Phil does in midfield, 5,7,5. If you play Milner as LB he scores 0. Scoring is often about where you are on the pitch. Phil's two best seasons scoring wise for us was was part of the attack not the midfield.

Similarly Wignaldum is quite capable of scoring from midfield as long as you play him in positon that allows him to attack. Newcastle he scored 11 league goals the season we bought him, 6 in his fist season for us when Can was the deepest player and only 1 and 3 when he was used in a much deeper role.

If we bought Phil back and tasked him with the responsibilities that we task Henderson with there is no way he makes more than 5 league goals a season, if that.

Right now we play a system that expects the middle three to hold their positon, it allows the attack more freedom and allows the full backs to terroize the oppositon. The lack of goalscoring from the middle three is by design, it is not down to skill.

The reason why he's failed at Barca is they've seen he can play in midfield but not actually analyzed were his goalscoring has came from. They thought they were signing Iniesta's replacement and instead he's disappointed in the the middle three with him being poor at link up play and ball retention (Arthur who can't seem to play for 90 minutes has already overtaken him) and does not have the pace or numbers to play in their forward three.

Phil is a special talent, one that can play excellent when you shape the team around him. We've outgrown him.

Of course it is, but in the grand sceme of things it may not be worth 150k a week and a guaranteed starting spot.

My point was to the idea that Phil's goalscoring helped us win games, they did not, they were more often goals in games we were already winning. The cherry on the pie rather than the difference between winning and losing.

From a fan point of view we'd all rather see Phil's world class outside the box screamers than a tap in, but pragmatically they have the exact same value. Paying an exuberant premium for that is a waste as Barca have found out.

We refuse to take him and no one else does we stand to make even more money on him as he's close to activating another appearance clause, we loan him out we are helping Barca financially which will be used against us next summer when they inevitably target one of our players to replace Suarez or Pique.

Phil makes sense at the wage we paid him when he left and the 50 million mark, he is currently not value for money. I should not have to explain tthis, he, like Bale, are clearly not wanted by their clubs for some time now. No club are coming near them and not down to their talent but because even in this crazy age of spending the two of them do not look value for money.

 

Thanks.

I've pointed this out 27 times. Glad to have an ally.

 

As the grammar Nazi around here ( Ken aka usscouse hates me for that ) I must insist that you spell names only one way. It's OK if you are wrong about the spelling...just be consistent.