‘Coutinho not for sale’ insists Klopp

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp insists that his club will absolutely not countenance selling Philippe Coutinho during the January transfer window. The Brazilian has been linked with moves to Barcelona and Real Madrid over the last few months. Paris Saint Germain are also said to be interested, but the German boss says there will be no […]
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sambafoot_admin
2017-01-10 20:13:00

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp insists that his club will absolutely not countenance selling Philippe Coutinho during the January transfer window. The Brazilian has been linked with moves to Barcelona and Real Madrid over the last few months.

Paris Saint Germain are also said to be interested, but the German boss says there will be no suggestion of a sale during the January window, "It would be nice if big clubs thought like this and forgot about a player completely because he"s been injured for five or six weeks.

"But big clubs don"t think this way unfortunately. It was not a big injury so there was no question of him not being the same player afterwards. But we never had any ideas or any plans or any talks about this because he is our player and there are no other ideas. And nothing has changed."

Klopp expects Coutinho to be available for Wednesday night’s League Cup semi-final against Southampton, but does not think he could play against Manchester United at the weekend on top of that.

"The time [between games] is not long enough for him to be 100 percent for Manchester United but he could play," Klopp said. “We have spoken before about there being a difference between being fit and being match-fit but of course it"s Phil, so we want to try everything we can to bring him as close as possible to his 100 percent.

"In this moment I would say it makes sense for him to be involved against Southampton, in the squad, and we will see what happens there — whether we have to use him or not or whatever. If not, we have another three days to prepare him for United.

“A few minutes for him does make sense. We will see if he"s ready tomorrow and on Wednesday morning. Then we will make the decision."

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