Leave our Phil alone! Liverpool fans react to Barcelona Coutinho pursuit
By David Gate
Liverpool fans are reacting to ANOTHER Barcelona player talking about Philippe Coutinho moving to the Nou Camp in a January transfer.
Barcelona are at it again. After a summer of pestering Liverpool, Philippe Coutinho and his agent, Barca are trying to unsettle the Brazilian once more. For the third time in a week a Barcelona player has been talking about Coutinho in an effort to prepare the way for a move.
First it was ex-Red Luis Suarez swapping Christmas gifts with Barcelona packaging. That is annoying and silly but nothing terrible. But then yesterday Barca captain Andres Iniesta starts putting the Brazilian’s name on his lips.
Now their Croatian midfielder Ivan Rakitic is joining in. This is the most direct approach yet, specifically talking about Coutinho playing at Anfield and how the door is open for him to join them.
This comes hot on the news that Atletico Madrid are filing a complaint to UEFA over Barca’s pursuit of their French forward, Antoine Griezmann. Undeterred by that development they are setting their sights back towards Anfield.
Ivan Rakitic spouting his mouth about coutinho now ???? Is there nothing we as a club can do about this?? Surely this is tapping up in some sort of way??? Horrible way of going about it from Barcelona would bet they've told players to say these things #LFC
— Matt Western (@westie0808) December 22, 2017
Their hope is to disrupt Coutinho and the club enough that Liverpool would be willing to sell him in January at a reduced rate. They are terrified of entering into a bidding war for the player in the summer.
To be fair to the player he is handling it well. He is putting in world-class performances every week and having his most productive season at Liverpool to date. He is trying to avoid this story taking over and had some help from teammate Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain in Sunday’s post match interview.
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Liverpool want to keep Coutinho through the end of the season. The Reds’ front four have been outstanding this year and Jurgen Klopp will want to avoid anything that disrupts that. Also PSG will enter the race for his signature in July creating a bidding war and potential bumper pay-day for the Reds.