Is Philippe Coutinho worth £110m?
These days it’s impossible to say. There’s a new normal for transfer fees nearly every week, and certainly year on year. Manchester United’s £89m outlay in securing the services of Paul Pogba last summer seemed somewhat hefty at the time, but in the context of the current window it looks positively canny in comparison.
In any case, ‘worth’ is a funny thing. It can of course only really be judged over time, and modern football has no patience for reflective opinions. Quite often the cost of losing a player for the selling club can differ markedly from the benefit to the buying club. It all depends on circumstance, want and need.
Being harsh, it could be argued that Coutinho is not yet quite the player he sometimes promises to be. Needless to say he is incredibly talented in many facets of the game, and capable of moments of true magic, but he could perhaps improve on his consistency and the frequency of his game-changing heroics. Not that most mavericks are regular.
A less harsh view would be that there are few players of his ilk in world football. Players who can dribble past two or three men, flash a shot in from 40 yards out, eye and play a defence-splitting pass to perfection (his playmaking remains oddly underrated), and showcase the kind of stylish composure that big moments demand.
But the heart wants what the heart wants, and so it would completely understandable if the 25-year-old felt it was high time to measure his talents alongside the likes of Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez. Liverpool are of course a huge club, but to stars of South American stock, it is very natural to be drawn to one of the Spanish giants.
From Liverpool’s point of view, around £110m is a dock-off wod no matter how you look at it. Of course, any team would feel the loss of such a player but Jurgen Klopp’s squad is burgeoning with attacking options and the German has managed to build a team where the collective are the star, rather than the individual.
An attack featuring any combination of Sadio Mane, Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino, Adam Lallana and Dominic Solanke, as well as cameos from a young Ben Woodburn and sometimes unavailable Daniel Sturridge would, and have, caused any opposition serious problems – with or without the mercurial talents of Coutinho.
But there are a number of ways in which Coutinho’s departure would hurt Liverpool, that are slightly more abstract than his absence from the pitch in any given game. The first is the message it would send to fans, players and prospective signings, that Liverpool, for all their boasts of wealth, are happy to cash in on their best players.
Barring a Hoffenheim-shaped obstacle, Anfield will host Champions League football this season, and much of the talk around Anfield has been about strengthening for that challenge. In Salah, Solanke and potentially Virgil van Dijk they will have, but to lose your shining light on the precipice of such a showcase? It would not be a good look.
A second concern would be impotent riches. The hope on Merseyside is that Van Dijk will eventually end up, at Anfield at enormous cost, perhaps even touching £70m. But such is the attitude and obstinance of Southampton at present that it is far from a formality. As for their very public pursuit of Naby Keita, that deal is even less likely, for even more money.
The point being that it is harder to spend tens of millions of transfer funds in the current market than ever before. No one wants to sell their biggest names, and fewer teams than ever are financially compelled to. The imperative thus becomes to at the very least hold onto the top talents you have, because replacing them is a monumental ball-ache.
Another worry is that Liverpool could fall into an Arsenalistic pattern of having little or no overlap between world-class stars. You could take any eight season period during Arsene Wenger’s reign and select a Best XI that would be a match for anyone, featuring 4 or 5 world-beaters. But their shared time on the pitch is rare. One (or two) left before another bloomed.
Liverpool’s line of top-level talent can’t be consecutive, only meeting each other as they pass through the door. Micro-eras won’t do if the club wants to seriously challenge for the top honours. From the supporters’ point of view, it would be a crying shame if the only games both Coutinho and Salah played together were pre-season friendlies.
Perhaps the very biggest fear is that the loss of players of the ability and magic of Coutinho would sew little seeds of doubt into the manager’s mind. That losing the Brazilian gem just before the peak years of his careers would erode at Klopp’s enthusiasm and hope to build Liverpool into something lasting and great. Is £100m+ worth that risk?
