Liverpool CEO Rubbishes Philippe Coutinho to Barcelona Speculation

Liverpool fans are a nervous bunch. Tell them a hundred times that Philippe Coutinho is going nowhere this summer and they’ll still find a way to imagining that he just might be. Such has been the case over the last day as the club push hard to sign Monaco’s Thomas Lemar.

The problem, you see, is that Lemar is good. And would cost quite a bit of money—there’s talk of the club going as high as £83M to get it done. And plays a similar role as Coutinho. And meanwhile Barcelona and their press mouthpieces won’t stop talking about Coutinho as though he’s coming.

A lot of Liverpool fans then are putting two and two together and getting the idea that Coutinho will be sold, that a fee has already been agreed even, and that the club are using that money to sign Lemar. It’s got to the point that a few Liverpool ITKs—“in the knows” in Twitter parlance—are picking up on it.

Liverpool CEO Peter Moore, though, has come out with the clearest signal yet that Coutinho is staying. Never mind briefed journalists and people who claim to know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy, this is the club’s CEO taking to social media to mock the idea that Coutinho is leaving.

Pressed by an angry fan accusing the club of going back on their word to keep Coutinho and suggesting the move for Lemar is a case of “sell to buy” with the pending transfer being funded by the Brazilian’s departure, Moore did his best to end the speculation once and for all.

“My sincere apologies,” began Moore’s diplomatic—if perhaps ever so lightly mocking—response to the angry Twitter user who accused the club of intending now to go back on their word about Coutinho not being sold this summer, “but I know not of what you speak.”

And, to be clear, if the club had in recent hours had a change of heart and decided to sell, Moore would very much know that. And he very much would not be engaging Twitter users on the subject of Coutinho’s potential sale to tell them anything one way or the other.

This, then, would seem to be the end of it. No matter what noises the Catalan press or so-called ITKs make over the next two days, Liverpool aren’t going back on their word. Philippe Coutinho will not be sold.