Liverpool Would Reportedly Refuse Philippe Coutinho Sale

With PSG having missed out on their top two attacking transfer targets, Alexis Sanchez and Pierre-Emerick Aubamayang, and with Kylian Mbappe looking incresingly likely to remain at Monaco this summer, there have been rumblings out of France in recent weeks suggesting that PSG could move for Philippe Coutinho.

A potential transfer fee of around €100M (£88M) has even been floated in the French press—and subsequently picked up by a few English tabloids as Coutinho’s supposed price should the Ligue 1 club come calling. According to Melissa Reddy and Goal, though, if PSG did come calling they would be dismissed out of hand.

Buzz in the French press aside, Liverpool have reportedly not received any enquiries about Coutinho this summer. They have not put a value on the star Brazilian as no club has yet asked what it would be, but if one had or did, the answer wouldn’t have been €100M. It would have been to say that Couinho isn’t for sale.

The French interest, though, is real, at least if Goal is to be believed in the matter, with Coutinho sitting next on their list of transfer targets after Mbappe. If, as expected, Mbappe doesn’t end up at PSG and the French big spenders come calling, they will be turned away—at the very least, Coutinho will not be sold this summer.

Alongside Liverpool not being in the mood to negotiate the player’s departure, it is not believed that Coutinho would seek a move to France—that outside of Barcelona, who have signalled to the player’s camp that they are not interested in him this summer, there is likely not a club that Coutinho would be inclined to move to.

As a result, the suggestion is that PSG will have to move on to their fifth-choice attacking target in Real Madrid’s James Rodriguez in order to get a deal done.