Liverpool are yet to receive a new bid from Barcelona for Philippe Coutinho, but reports in Spain claim a renewed offer for the midfielder is imminent.<\/p>\n
Barcelona’s long-standing interest in the 25-year-old has been rekindled by the January transfer window and his continued desire to join the club.<\/p>\n
Liverpool are now braced for another attempt to secure a deal this month.<\/p>\n
Liverpool rejected three offers, and a transfer request from the Brazilian, before the start of this season.<\/p>\n
The last of Barcelona’s three bids was \u00a3118m – which included add-ons totalling in excess of \u00a330m based on Coutinho winning the Ballon d’Or, and other built-in clauses.<\/p>\n
Barcelona will have to increase that last offer, without assorted clauses, to have any hope of resurrecting a deal.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Liverpool are refusing to be drawn into any public debate about an issue that provided an unwelcome backdrop to manager Jurgen Klopp’s planning for this campaign when it became a saga during the last close season.<\/p>\n
Liverpool will also know sanctioning a sale could impact on their pursuit of a place in the Premier League’s top four and the Champions League, where they face Porto in the last 16.<\/p>\n
Coutinho could not play for Barcelona in the Champions League having already represented Liverpool, but this has not cooled the Catalans’ intention of doing a deal this month.<\/p>\n
And in a bizarre twist, Coutinho’s name briefly appeared on a Nike advert for Barcelona shirts this week before being removed.<\/p>\n
Significantly, however, there has been no repeat of the hardline public stance Liverpool adopted last summer when the club issued a statement insisting “no offers will be considered” for Coutinho and this was a “definitive stance”.<\/p>\n
Coutinho, who joined Liverpool from Inter Milan for \u00a38.5m in January 2013, was also told he would not be leaving in that summer transfer window in a meeting with Mike Gordon, president of Liverpool’s owners Fenway Sports Group.<\/p>\n
Liverpool manager Klopp has also sidestepped attempts to get him to confirm Coutinho will be staying at Anfield, saying: “In my business it makes absolutely no sense to talk about things that could maybe happen because that creates stories that are 90% of the time not true.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Liverpool are yet to receive a new bid from Barcelona for Philippe Coutinho, but reports in Spain claim a renewed offer for the midfielder is imminent. Barcelona’s long-standing interest in the 25-year-old has been rekindled by the January transfer window and his continued desire to join the club. Liverpool are now braced for another attempt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":69097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[420,69,10020,227,38805,67],"yoast_head":"\n