Would it be so awful if we sold Coutinho for £50m+?

Bare in mind he's my favorite player in our squad currently and I don't want him sold.

But just objectively speaking he won't be too difficult to replace. Hell if we get Goetze, who is a bit more of a threat in production in goals/assists than Coutinho, we won't really be losing much if he was Phil's replacement (which he's not, if he comes in it will to play with Phil).

The three players behind the striker are definitely very imbalanced and a major problem at the moment. We've got Lallana, Firmino, and Coutinho who literally are all best in the middle rather than wide and don't have that much pace. Lallana ain't even good to start. If I was building a side I wouldn't want to start all three, heck even 2 of them would be pushing it at the same time. I like all 3 of those players to have different creative strengths to give us more weapons.

I think at the moment it would send a wrong message to sell any of our better players. We need to put a stamp down that we're not a selling club anymore and we want to get back on our perch with full backing of Klopp. Unless Klopp doesn't have a spot for them anymore, in which case of course we get rid (i.e. Benteke).

No. I doubt anyone would want to pay that much for him, though.

Well... it's a tougher decision than I first thought.

My initial reaction would be to bite their hands off. As you mention, bringing in Gotze would replace (if not improve upon) much of what Coutinho brings to the squad. His production in the final third is better, and he's already familiar with the role he would play within Klopp's system. Therefore, take the money, complete the Gotze signing, and move on.

That said, Coutinho brings something to the table beyond just his statistics. He seems to have a genuine passion for the club and its supporters. In the wake of Gerrard's departure, I don't think there's anyone in the squad that has as close a connection with the fans, and you can see it every time he scores. With this is mind, I'd vote to keep him as long as he warrants a place in the squad and wants to stay.

He's time and again showing to be such a street footballer. Pulls of some absolute moments of magic 1-vs-1 but it's becoming clear he's no playmaker. I'd try to make him a winger asap, even though I've previously been against that. He just has no grand vision of the game, he can't pull the strings. Great individual talent, but not very suited to a team game.

Don't want to sell him, though, because we're not in a position to buy great players. We need to stick with those who have potential and find the right roles for them. Make Cou a kick-ass luxury winger and enjoy that, end of.

Not gonna lie, I'd sell for anything over 30 if a bid came from a non-domestic club.

He's really good, but not great. (By great, I mean in the tier of Alonso, Mascherano, Torres, Suarez etc.)

Really needs to up his final touch imo, becomes so very frustrating to watch at times.

EDIT: Don't get me wrong, he has potential to reach higher heights, and I believe he has it in him too if he tried hard enough, but maybe he doesn't have enough competition at the club or something because he's stagnated quite a bit since 2013/14 bearing in mind injuries of course so I don't know, sitting on the fence with him still.

NO, no and NO.

True, he is somewhat inconsistent. True, he isn't living up to his full potential in terms of goals and assists. True, he takes loads of speculative shots (rather than trying/thinking to increase the probability).

Despite all that, he is real quality. If we are a club with an ambition (mission), we would be focusing on making the most out of him rather than cashing in on him.

Nobody is going to buy for that price, And we shouldn't even think about that bid unless we 4-5 players lined up who's given us a green light to sign them.

So it won't happen and if it does it won't be for anything more than 30m pounds.

It wouldn't be awful, but at the same time I'd much rather we used him as an 8 where we'd make the most of his ability and he could lend creative spark to the midfield. Right now I feel like he's stagnating out wide and I find most of his best plays start deeper on the pitch when he can make a turn and run or a long, penetrative ball. He can still take long shots on occasion from there also but can focus more on his ball movement, tenacity, passing and dribbling which are his strongest attributes.

Coutinho as 8 is very good idea imo. Has all the skills to play there so wouldn't look out of place plus Liverpool could really use a creative player in midfield. He can make those iniesta like runs opening up the defence. Out wide he does look kinda left out.

Lucifer wrote:Coutinho as 8 is very good idea imo. Has all the skills to play there so wouldn't look out of place plus Liverpool could really use a creative player in midfield. He can make those iniesta like runs opening up the defence. Out wide he does look kinda left out.

Every time he's played in a deeper midfield role for Liverpool he's looked very good. I think when he plays too advanced he often times gets too caught up in trying to play like a forward and it detracts from his game. I still use the City game from 13/14 as a perfect example of how effective he could be as a CM. Completely dominated the middle of the pitch and carried the play. Iniesta is a good comp (when he plays deeper), really.

well we have signed Mane so he has the competition this season to improve and I hope he improves.

Curtinho wrote:

Lucifer wrote:Coutinho as 8 is very good idea imo. Has all the skills to play there so wouldn't look out of place plus Liverpool could really use a creative player in midfield. He can make those iniesta like runs opening up the defence. Out wide he does look kinda left out.

Every time he's played in a deeper midfield role for Liverpool he's looked very good. I think when he plays too advanced he often times gets too caught up in trying to play like a forward and it detracts from his game. I still use the City game from 13/14 as a perfect example of how effective he could be as a CM. Completely dominated the middle of the pitch and carried the play. Iniesta is a good comp (when he plays deeper), really.

My favorite Coutinho is the 13/14 Coutinho where he played deeper most of the season so I'm completely for this.

Everton H, Arsenal H, City H are three perfect examples of how good he was in that number 8 position.

Coutinho can be great in a Alonso role, specially with the combo of Finishing, Speed and Footwork from Sturridge-Firmino-Mane. Now, who would play the Masch role???

100%, this is such a mid table club thread FML.

Would it be so awful if we merge this thread with the following one ?

http://www.goallegacy.net/t27834-philippe-il-principe-salvatore-coutinho-carreira-10?highlight=coutinho

mr-r34 wrote:100%, this is such a mid table club thread FML.

2010 - 7th
2011 - 6th
2012 - 8th
2013 - 7th
2015 - 6th
2016 - 8th

Exactly proves my point, this meanlity is the what got us to this position, you dont sell one of the better players for 50 mil when we just bought mane for 34mil.

Selling Cou for any amount if dumb considering we wouldnt get a equal or better replacment.

Did you even read my post in the OP, the thread title is purposely misleading, I said the exact same thing as you.

Indeed if we're at a point where we're signing the Manés of the world for £30m+ we better hang on to players like Coutinho for dear life.

Yes it would be. Countino is a class above any player we have now and the only player so far who looks like he has superstar quality, we really can't afford to lose him. Even for £70mil I wouldn't sell him.

Firmino is better...

Again, this is the season Coutinho makes or breaks in my eyes.

He's been too inconsistent / stagnated for far too long. He's 24 now. He needs to show more and get rid of the immaturity out of his game (shooting from 40 yards regularly is not ideal ffs). Only positive is we actually have someone in charge that is ruthless and will drop a player regardless of status / their name. Also he has a bit of competition now so he'll have to actually play for a spot which might push him to his potential.

Red Alert wrote:Firmino is better...

Again, this is the season Coutinho makes or breaks in my eyes.

He's been too inconsistent / stagnated for far too long. He's 24 now. He needs to show more and get rid of the immaturity out of his game (shooting from 40 yards regularly is not ideal ffs). Only positive is we actually have someone in charge that is ruthless and will drop a player regardless of status / their name. Also he has a bit of competition now so he'll have to actually play for a spot which might push him to his potential.

I agree with all of this so not much to add. With the addition of some of these players, and the academy players coming up, Coutinho has also never had more competition for his spot. Is **** or get off the pot time.

Red Alert wrote:Firmino is better...

Again, this is the season Coutinho makes or breaks in my eyes.

He's been too inconsistent / stagnated for far too long. He's 24 now. He needs to show more and get rid of the immaturity out of his game (shooting from 40 yards regularly is not ideal ffs). Only positive is we actually have someone in charge that is ruthless and will drop a player regardless of status / their name. Also he has a bit of competition now so he'll have to actually play for a spot which might push him to his potential.

I definitely wouldn't say that Firmino is better than Coutinho but I guess we'll agree to disagree on that one heading in to this season.

Coutinho is better than any other midfield/AM that we have on the books and we should be pulling out all the stops to keep him.

Is he though? What's he exactly better at?

Firmino has an end product, has a smarter footballing brain (positional wise etc), presses more, and is a team player. He's our best player in my eyes, and will be the closest we'll ever get to see another Suarez again. Amazing talent, and I love his attitude. There's a reason Jurgen prefers Firm in that '10' role.  

Don't get me wrong, Coutinho is very talented and I do rate him but he is slowly becoming overrated. He's 24 now and he's still more "potential" than he is ability. Again, he still has a lot of immaturity in his game, and for a player that's coming into his prime it's time he gets his head down and work hard for the team before he wastes his obvious talent. I mean, how many times has he tried to shoot wastefully when a player is in a better position to score? It does my head in. Yeah it's amazing when it comes off, but how many times does it? 1 in 20??? :S

I do believe he has it in him to push on that potential but he HAS clearly stagnated / been very inconsistent in the last 2 years. It's time he takes more responsibility and starts to put in the performances required consistently as we have a lot of depth in the final third now, and we have a manager that wouldn't be scared to drop him if he continues to think he can just play on reputation. Maybe I'm being too harsh on him as we were FAR too static under Rodgers and our final third build up play was boring and slow, but he does have to improve if he wants to claim to be a guaranteed starter under Klopp.

Coutinho alone is a uselss player. How many times, we have seen him man marked and he is out of the game for 90 minutes. The problem is he thinks he is already a WC player where as he is not. And he ends up trying something stupid. Another problem is he has never got to learn under a good coach, how to evolve and convert all his abilities into more consistent and tangible product. Krawietz and Buvac are brilliant in educating players. So I expect that this season Coutinho will improve, as he has more competition than before and another main thing, other players like Firmino, Lallana, Sturridge, Origi, Wijnaldum would attract more attention from opposition.

And I always was the one to tell Firmino is the closest we will get to, to have a player like Suarez. So if Coutinho improves as I expect and he plays regularly with Firmino this season, there will be havoc on football pitches of England