LIVERPOOL allowed Philippe Coutinho to leave for Barcelona mid-way through the season because they believed Adam Lallana was about to re...
LIVERPOOL allowed Philippe Coutinho to leave for Barcelona mid-way through the season because they believed Adam Lallana was about to return from injury.
That’s what Jurgen Klopp has revealed.
The Reds sold the Brazilian playmaker for £142million in January having fought desperately hard to keep him at the end of August after the player submitted a transfer request.
But with Liverpool flying high at the half-way point of the campaign, Coutinho’s exit threatened to derail their progress with many fans fearing for the club’s top-four hopes after selling arguably their best player.
Mohamed Salah has since taken up Coutinho’s mantle to help inspire the Reds not just to fourth place in the Premier League but also the Champions League final.
But Liverpool have still struggled at times with their squad size and Klopp admits that is a by-product of Lallana’s fitness woes with the midfielder having made just three first-team appearances all season.
“I really respected Phil’s wish from the first second,” Klopp revealed to The Guillem Balague Podcast.
“Not that I do that every time but it felt, ‘Yes, that could be difficult’. It’s not about that he signed a new contract only weeks before that, stuff like that.
“It was really clear, he wouldn’t have asked me for any other club. But for this club, there was no chance [of him staying].
One player more, everything would’ve been fine. One player was not fit, the other was in Barcelona. We still did it and everything is fine.
Jurgen Klopp
“Then we had to be hard in the summer because we had no other solution. We lost Adam Lallana in that time as well and we would have lost two players.
“That’s not possible, you cannot sort that on the transfer market. He [Coutinho] was open for that [staying until January], that was really cool.
“Then we had to be fair, next window, ‘Now we can do it. We don’t like it, but we can do it.’ Of course we thought Adam would be back then.
“He wasn’t unfortunately and that was then a real problem we suffered until the last few weeks because we didn’t have enough players.
“One player more, everything would’ve been fine. One player was not fit, the other was in Barcelona. We still did it and everything is fine.”
Klopp dismissed suggestions that he spoke with his players to tell them that they would be trusted to take up Coutinho’s role in the team.
He added: “I think that was clear. If we give Phil Coutinho away and we don’t buy a player then we obviously think we are strong enough - that was the message for the boys.
“And not ‘By the way, you can fill the hole!’ or whatever Phil leaves here. They [the players] are not silly.
“When we made the meeting before the [4-3] City game [in January], we had situations from the first City game [a 5-0 defeat] where Phil was involved. We never said, ‘We have to leave it out because it’s Phil and he’s not here anymore.’
“Phil was our boy for a long time and we respect him a lot and wish him all the best.
“That’s the most important thing the club showed in this moment, the price was good and he wanted it, then you do business.
“You cannot come and say, ‘I’m not fine here anymore, I want to go Real Madrid for £40million.’ Yeah, funny. That’s nothing.
“If all is right, then it’s possible and we can leave in a fantastic way - we’re still friends.”
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