? Coutinho Wants Barca Move | #LFC Daily News LIVE

Paul brings you the reports that Phil Coutinho has told Liverpool officials he wants to move to Barcelona, ‘if a deal can be done amicably’. Other news includes John Arne Riise’s comments on Mamadou Sakho’s future at the club!   The news regarding these two transfer stories is just relentless at the moment and both could swing either for or against us. Paul started with the Virgil van Dijk talk. According to Paul Joyce, Southampton have reiterated their stance that Van Dijk is not for sale which potentially puts Liverpool in a tricky position. The Echo have claimed that following our illegal approach earlier this summer, for which we issued an apology and publicly withdrew our interest, we’ll only submit an offer if Southampton show they’re willing to sell van Dijk. Since their preference now is to sell Van Dijk to either Arsenal or Chelsea, their statement saying that the player is still not for sale gives them the protection they potentially want from Liverpool making a bid. It’s a cruel world. Southampton are targeting Middlesbrough defender Ben Gibson as they begin to size up replacements. Maybe we should just sign him and cut out the middle man? (There’s only so many times you can make that joke and it’s still funny) Moving onto the Coutinho news. There have been lots of conflicting reports knocking about today about the status of Coutinho’s career at Liverpool, but no story caught the eye of Twitter quite as much as the one being reported by The Times and Yahoo (yes, really) journalist Duncan Castles. He says that Coutinho has taken a ???training protest’ in a bid to force Barcelona transfer. The source quotes “He is doing little in training to force the move”. As Paul rightly says, it’s an attempt at scare-mongering Liverpool fans into talking about and sharing his article, because the entire piece is a load of bollocks. It’s no secret that Phil Coutinho would like to play for Barcelona, but at the same time, it’s looking like the true fact of the matter is that he is not desperate to leave Liverpool and will not force his way out. Clearly this isn’t good enough for most of the mainstream press (particularly the Spanish media outlets and a couple of British dickhead journalists) and of course it has to be twisted and turned into something more than it is. Paul discussed the comments of Sky Sports La Liga ???expert’ Guillem Ballague, who on Twitter said that Liverpool are ???surprised’ and have ???rubbished’ reports that they are in negotiations with Barca officials over the sale. We heard the thoughts of Jamie Carragher, who discussed the potential move on Sky Sports’ new debate show. Jamie Carragher thinks that Liverpool will keep Philippe Coutinho this summer. “The thing with Coutinho is that he will want to go. I think Liverpool will have him and he will stay, but I think they will have him for 12 months. I do not think there is any way Liverpool will sell him. Not a chance. What is the point of Jurgen Klopp or the owners being at Liverpool if you are going to sell your best players? You are there to be successful. Klopp is not there just to be in the top four.” And that was pretty much all there was to talk about today. All in all, it’s clear that the discussions at the moment are being dominated by these two major stories, and you sense that both could go right to the wire in this transfer window. We’ll be back tomorrow with more updates! Article by Ben Kelly