Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp admits that his club had no choice but to let star man Philippe Coutinho move on to Barcelona. Simply put, you just can’t keep anybody that doesn’t want to stay, and Coutinho longed for his dream move to Barca since the summer. Klopp and company had no choice but to let him move on.
Jurgen Klopp wasn’t sure of the Brazilian’s true commitment to the club, and once someone’s heart may not be in it, a change of scenery is best for all involved.
“There was no other option,” Jurgen Klopp responded when asked why the transfer deal was done.
“If there is somebody maybe who should be angry, massively disappointed, in this case, then it could be the manager of the club the player is leaving, but I am not (upset), because I know we tried absolutely everything to convince Phil to stay here and carry on going together with us.
“It was his dream (to join Barca) and it is the truth when I say he left Liverpool for only one club and we really had to accept that. The club was fighting until the last second and tried everything.”
“It would have been very difficult if we had said, which we could have done, ‘look, here is your contract and you have to stay here’, and to use him in the second half of the season.”
The Philippe Coutinho sale to Barcelona was the third most valuable in history, behind only Neymar and Kylian Mbappe. Jurgen Klopp maintains that the club won’t immediately look to find a player that directly replaces Coutinho.
“We don’t have to replace him. What we have to do is we have to step up,” Klopp added.
“We played fantastic football without Phil. I don’t want to sound disrespectful because I really liked him but we only have to carry on. We had fantastic games with him and not that good games with him.”
“We have open eyes through this transfer window but we will not make crazy things. We want ‘right’ before ‘expensive’.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and the Tribune company’s blogging community Chicago Now.
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