Rumour Mongering: Barcelona Prepare €80M Coutinho Bid

Coming off their worst performance of the season and of Jürgen Klopp’s tenure at Liverpool football club and with it seemingly fair now to ask what the point even of holding onto Philippe Coutinho was if the club weren’t going to make the signings needed to ensure top four survival, Barcelona are back at it again.

At least according to a smattering of reports in the Catalan press that have been amplified today by Sky journo Guillen Balague, claiming a rather insulting €80M bid for the player will be lodged before the transfer window re-opens on January 1st in the hopes of Liverpool’s resolve having weakened since last summer.

It seems highly unlikely that it has, though if Liverpool do continue to struggle in the league and begin to lose touch with the top four before the new year dawns, anything is possible. Yet even if their resolve were to weaken, it hardly seems likely they would let Coutinho go for the measly proposed €80M fee.

Still, that’s the bid Barcelona are reportedly planning to submit to Liverpool—while almost certainly asking Coutinho and his agent to do their best to once again agitate for a move. And it’s a bid Liverpool will reject, at the very least waiting on something that looks a little more like a reasonable offer for their star.

For now, until Barcelona actually go through with making their inevitable, and inevitably insulting, bid, all this talk mostly serves as a reminder of the efforts Liverpool made to holding on to Coutinho last summer, efforts that increasingly look to not have been worth the bother.