Liverpool chairman Tom Werner has said that he thinks that former red Philippe Coutinho probably regrets his move to Barcelona.
Coutinho pushed through a move to the Catalan giants last year with Liverpool agreeing a deal for a club record £142 million.
The Brazilian has since failed to replicate the form that made him a star at Anfield with just 21 goals in 75 games and Werner believes that leaving Liverpool may have been a mistake for the 26-year-old.
“As far as I’m concerned, there’s no reason why any elite player wouldn’t want to be playing for Liverpool,” he told the Echo.
“We have such a strong squad with a strong back office and a manager who I think is one of the greatest managers in world football.
“So I don’t think there is going to be any players who if they were invited to play for Liverpool, wouldn’t jump at the opportunity.
“I have only good things to say about Philippe. But I think he left Liverpool because he wanted to play for one of the two big Spanish clubs.
“We tried to convince him that we had the club moving in the right direction and that he could experience big Champions League occasions by staying at Liverpool. I think he probably regrets his decision.”
Jurgen Klopp used the funds from the sale of Coutinho to largely fund the transfers of Virgil van Dijk and Alisson Becker and his close friend Campino thinks that the German would not have been happy with his squad even if Liverpool had won last year’s Champions League final against Real Madrid.
“I must say this is one of the big qualities of Jürgen, that he’s very quick in analyses of the games,” Campino stresses. “I’m very sure he’s the most disappointed person of all if things go wrong. But he’s got a great way of getting up again and get going again.
“I think he’s absolutely fantastic in turning things to a positive view and learning out of mistakes or bad situations.
“Even if they had won the Champions League last year, the team would not by far have been where he wanted it to be.
“It was clear that it was just one step of many on the way to further development. Obviously, he was going to need a little time building his perfect team.
“Even now, he’s still improving and improving and always getting better – but he’s still not there. I think he has got the feeling that the job is not done yet as far as I can see.”
