KopTalk.com Forums Football Liverpool FC Forum All it took was 20 mins for Coutinho to show his worth!

0-2 down to ManU - attack struggling to get anywhere - on comes Phil for a goal and assist to save the game. Hate to say it - but just the player to unlock a low block defence and we could have got him on loan.

Credit to Stevie as well, he took off a defender to put Phil. They were the better team conceding 2 from silly mistakes, their 2 goals were very well constructed

Clever signing, no - brainer really. Hope he does well, that back injury seems to have cleared up.

lol

And I understand they are paying only half his wages, probably too much for us

I don't think Barcelona would of dealed with us even if we were interested after the robbery we pulled off. I also don't like going back to former players, it gives a sign of desperation. Fair play to villa.

How is it a desperation if it is Barca/Coutinho who have an issue whereas we have the choice? Emotion is useless in these cases, we just need to see if there is value for money, full stop. I do it in my job, ie, take employees who left but at a lower salary if they want to come back and they can add value. It just gives the signal to the others that the grass is definitely not greener elsewhere

For me this post is spot on. We all know what the team needs, we all know what Coutinho can do. This is why I was saying there is a limiting factor on our progression, not getting a good creative player is either penny pinching or management strategy.

I don't think going back for Coutinho needs any sentiment attached to it, he would of done a job for us the other night against Arsenal and we would have 1 foot in another final, cutting your nose off to spite your face comes to mind.

Only reason could be that Barca might have insisted a buy at the end of the loan which the club did not want to commit to (speculation here).
If it’s a pure loan agreement with some wages paid by Barca, was really a no brainer to sign him.

Klopp was not fighting to keep Coutinho at the time, I think he was ok with him leaving as he did not really fit his system, he did not press, well he often took long shots rather than passing and the players always seemed to pass to him 'as the inspiration' when they were lacking ideas/confidence, so he became a funnel that could be blocked by the opposition.

That is not having a go at Coutinho, he was a tremendous player for us, but I do not think he fitted Klopp's system, so it made sense to sell at the crazy price.

Gerrard knows him well and will get the most out of him, but Villa can carry him as a star player maverick type, like they did with Grealish, Klopp's system does not allow for that, we had the same issue with Shaq, so I am guessing that is why we did not sign him.

I would rather we used the money to buy and up and coming player, we have far too many players around 29-32, someone like Ismaïla Sarr when he is back to fitness.