“If he carries on the way he is going, the top clubs around Europe will be looking at him.”
It looks like Liverpool will keep hold of their most talented player. They have rejected three bids from Barcelona for Philippe Coutinho, and the latest reports suggest that the Catalan club have given up hope of signing the player, despite offering £118m.
Coutinho submitted a transfer request, and hasn’t appeared in any of Liverpool’s fixtures so far this season. However, he will reportedly hold clear the air talks with Jurgen Klopp ahead of being reintegrated within the squad. It is understood that Coutinho will tell Liverpool that Barcelona pressured him into seeking a move away.
Staying put https://t.co/cOkRurRgOI
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) August 18, 2017
Liverpool fans will be happy to see Coutinho return, even if he has tainted their relationship slightly with his transfer request. However, as good as it will be for Klopp to have the Brazilian back, it could be argued he’s not Liverpool’s most important player.
The 25-year-old was excellent last season, scoring 13 league goals and recording seven assists. Coutinho is the club’s most talented player, but it could be argued that Sadio Mane is Liverpool’s most important player, and most effective.
Before you shoot that view down, it was Jamie Carragher that expressed it on Monday Night Football.
Mane scored the winning goal against Crystal Palace on Saturday, and it was put to Carragher that the Senegalese forward has become Klopp’s most important player.
“I’d make an argument for that, especially with the way Jurgen Klopp likes to play. I think he’s massively important,” the former Liverpool defender said.
“You see the goals that he’s got and his goals record for a wide player is phenomenal since he’s come to the club. All the other players on the list are top strikers in the Premier League. For Mane to be there – it shows his impact.”
The list Carragher referred to was the players with the best minutes per goal ratio in the Premier League over the past two years.
The former Southampton forward is among the top players for this statistic, despite being a wide forward, rather than a striker.
In 27 appearances last season, Mane scored 13 goals and recorded five assists. Liverpool’s worst spell coincided with with Mane’s absence as he competed in the African Nations Cup.
There was no replacement with the pace and dynamism to match the 25-year-old and Klopp seems to have tried to lessen the reliance on Mane with the signing of Mo Salah.
“If you compare him to Coutinho, who is a fantastic player which is why Barcelona want him, but if he carries on the way he is going, the top clubs around Europe will be looking at him because he has been a revelation since he came in,” Carragher said.
The former Liverpool defender also expects Coutinho to remain at Anfield, and said that Liverpool “were never going to sell him” at this stage in the transfer window.
"That's a ridiculous thing to say" https://t.co/58FQhF3XlU
— FootballJOE (@FootballJOE) August 19, 2017
“I said a few weeks ago that they can’t sell him, but the problem is it becomes more political rather than the business of it,” Carragher said.
“Liverpool have had such a poor window, they couldn’t be seen to be letting go of him. Now if Liverpool three big targets of Virgil van Dijk, Naby Keita and Mo Salah had all come in the door, it may have been easier to prise him away. Even a supporter might have thought, ‘£120m for Coutinho?’, with the ability to go and spend that with a few weeks of the season to go. But they were never going to sell him because of the fact they had not bought enough players in.”
It could be another few weeks before Mane and Coutinho line-out together again for Liverpool. The club have two games before the September international break, against Hoffenheim and Arsenal, but the Brazilian is unlikely to be available for either.
