There were a lot of moving parts during the transfer window.
We saw how Jonny Evans remained a West Brom player because Manchester City were not able to sell off Eliaquim Mangala and how Arsenal kept a hold of Alexis Sanchez, amid approaches from City, because they weren’t able to bring in Thomas Lemar so late in the window.
And there was reportedly something similar at play at Anfield, according to the latest report from SportsBild.
The German outlet has claimed that Liverpool might well have been convinced to accept Barcelona’s whopper final offer for Philippe Coutinho if their targeted replacement, Thomas Muller, had agreed to move to Merseyside.
The report claims that there was ‘concrete’ interest from Reds manager Jurgen Klopp in the Bayern Munich forward and that there was an openness to sell Coutinho to Barcelona if Klopp had been able to secure Muller as the Brazilian’s replacement.
However Muller made it perfectly clear, after being sounded out, that he had absolutely no intention of leaving the Bundesliga powerhouse which meant that Liverpool were simply unable to part ways with Coutinho.
Coutinho has recently broken his silence on what happened over the summer, claiming that he is “focused on working hard and to have a good year if possible.”
“The whole world knows what happened,” he said. “From the first moment I played here and in the last game, I was very well received — like I always have been for the past four or five years.
“The respect I have for them [the fans] and the respect they have for me appears to be maintained. What I need to do is to work hard and to always do my best to help the team. I received a job offer, like in life whatever work you do.
“Sometimes you’re interested and sometimes you’re not. In this case, like you all know, I was interested. My family too.”
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