The reverse attitude - 'we'll sell you when we want, we're not selling to our rivals, at any price, we don't need to sell anyone, you can sit in the reserves' etc, works even better for me. We insisted Suarez stayed and we nearly won the league.
What we are really saying, are we not, is that we can't keep our best players. Dortmund sold their best players to Bayern who consistently out performed them as a result. I'm sorry, but giving the green light to players that fancy a move is not necessarily adopting a strong position. Saying absolutely nothing about this would be quite sensible because, should it be the case that Man City, now call for Coutinho, we can hardly play hard ball over it if we have a policy of allowing players to leave freely when they want to. More money, the chance to win trophies etc is an enticing lure and Klopp needs to be clear that if a player has a 'wobble' he can be rehabilitated following a period of 'time out'. If Coutinho has a long contract, hold him to it, I say. What is his contract situation, by the way?
In the days of foreign mega-money mercenaries, a contract is all we have. Coutinho is LFC at his core or is he just another great footballer that happens to be at the club at this time? He is our best player, along with DS and Firmino, and I think those guys have got goals in them. I don't want them sold, meekly, to Citeh.
