Jurgen Klopp has reacted to Liverpool keeping hold of Coutinho at the end of the transfer window.
Despite multiple gargantuan offers from Barcelona and the player himself handing in a transfer request and feigning injury – Liverpool flatly refused to even enter negotiations for his sale.
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This was a decision from FSG rather than the boss, but Klopp is just glad he has a playmaker of immense calibre to choose again.
“We have our situation and Dortmund has another,” he said to German media outlet SPORT1, when asked about why his former club sold Ousmane Dembele but we kept Phil.
“Don’t believe everything in the press or that there are offers here and there and that the minute after the offer has been entered, it should already be over.
“We are not like George Orwell where everybody knows everything immediately. We have exactly the situation we wanted and no other.
“Dortmund decided the player (Dembele) would leave them, so I cannot compare the two situations.
“We still have a really good player in the squad who can play.”
It’s not entirely obvious what Klopp means, here. His comments do suggest though that he always knew Coutinho would stay and that despite the media barrage, Liverpool were always confident in our position.
Coutinho is currently with Brazil, but will be flown back to Merseyside with Roberto Firmino after the game against Colombia on Tuesday evening.
Firmino is a certainty to start against Manchester City at the weekend, but we cannot imagine Klopp will select Phil from the outset – not after the manner in which his team-mates destroyed Hoffenheim and Arsenal without him.