Philippe Coutinho is indispensable

Declan Maher
Aug 9, 2017 · 3 min read

Selling him would border neglect.

As Neymar’s record breaking transfer to PSG starts to have real world impact, the £200m up front fee will change the world of transfers forever.

They could afford it, but can everyone else?

The money paid to acquire Brazil’s captain means not only do Barcelona have a gaping hole in their attacking trident, but everyone knows they can hold the Catalan giant to ransom, such was size of the fee.

The transfer has reset the values of players with world class talent or potential forever, with players such as Borussia Dortmund’s Ousmane Dembele, purchased from Rennes a year ago for £15m, now valued at more than £100m and Liverpool’s £8m bargain from Inter Milan 4 years ago now valued at a similar price.

In a sense the system is no different. Aside from academy products, Barcelona often pay a premium to get the best, proven players from the world’s top leagues, such as Luis Suarez, Samuel Umtiti, Andre Gomes in recent seasons. They’ve always been able to afford it, and whilst Neymar is obviously a huge loss on the field, the financial gain mean that it shouldn’t be too difficult to find a replacement.

But times are changing for the teams they buy from.

With the Neymar sale, for clubs the next tier down, with players that have the ability to play the next tier up, there is no value in selling.

If a bid came in for Coutinho last season in the region of £100m, it would have been hard to say no.

That type of money would have made him the most expensive footballer ever, and theoretically set Liverpool up to buy potentially two top class players that could immediately improve the first eleven.

That is no longer the case.

With £67m not enough to prise Naby Keita from RB Leipzig and incompetence removing Liverpool from the Virgil Van Dijk race, the ability to use the huge sum of money to improve the team has dwindled.

Of players of similar ability or potential touted as “available” this summer, who could £110m buy that could either replace Coutinho or strengthen key areas of the side?

Monaco have turned down astronomical bids from Real Madrid for Kylian Mbappe. The aforementioned Dembele would cost a similar fee, but would he really swap Dortmund for Merseyside?

Having the money would finally put Liverpool in a position to financially compete with the likes of Manchester United, Chelsea and Manchester City if they were going head to head for a player, but as we’ve seen in the past, players seem to prefer living in London and Manchester to Liverpool.

Besides, it would be near enough impossible to replace a player like Coutinho, who has shown so often his ability to put the team on his back and produce big moments.

It seems as this summer, Jurgen Klopp identified a winger, a left back, a centre midfielder and a centre back to add to a squad that is competing on four fronts this season.

Having signed two players in positions of need and been rejected for two others, it is a struggle to see where such funds, even if they were available, could be wisely reinvested.

Written by

Journalism Student at The University of Sheffield.

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