Another Day, Another Bullshit Coutinho Link

The last international break until March is—mercifully—almost over. While we cross all our fingers, toes, and anything else that can be crossed in hopes that Sadio Mane did not do his hamstring (again) whilst with Senegal, we can be thankful that most of Merseyside’s finest are returning to training fully fit.

This even included Philippe Coutinho, who, for the second time this campaign miraculously recovered from a nagging injury to represent Brazil. They don’t call him The Magician for nothin’, folks.

Liverpool players getting injured whilst on international duty is a time-honored tradition. So, too, is tradition of the rumor mill spinning wildly during these long, club football-less days.

Adding to this storied tradition, once again, is the Spanish publication Mundo Deportivo, who are once again peddling the rather tired Coutinho-to-Barcelona nonsense that has been boring us since mid-July.

The twist this time, claims the report, is that Barcelona will be back in January with a €80 million plus €30 million in add-ons bid. This is laughable for several reasons. For one, this is worse than the bid Liverpool roundly rejected in the summer. And if you’re going to just make stuff up, you could at least use original numbers. This was the exact same numbers, only substituting out the more valuable pound symbols for euros. “Oh, 80 million euros?! Why didn’t you say? Of course I’ll accept your worse bid!” And, the €30 million in add-ons? We all know how achievable those were last time.

It is the laziest of lazy rumor mongering. Can we fucking get back to real football already?