My only concern is that The Echo article says "Coutinho wants to sign for Barca but has so far shown no signs of agitating for a move."
Coutinho wants the move? Has someone with the club or Phil confirmed this to Pearce? What has everyone on here been saying re Keita and VVD when it appeared the clubs weren't interested - that the player needed to hand in a transfer request, make it clear he wants to leave, etc. This is followed by "who wants to keep a player who doesn't want to be here?"
So far we haven't seen this from Phil and let's hope we don't, because I think it is the only thing that makes this happen.
Which reminds me what I hate about the influence agents have in the game. whenever a team buys a player, the team management believes it will help the team and the supporters hope it will, but the only people who are for sure benefiting from transfers are agents, taking a healthy percentage of the fee. They are the ones who HAVE to have transfers, and I've no doubt that they are out there hawking their hired guns from club to club all the time. Of course anybody would want Phil, but with a player signing a big contract with no release clause, his agent then helping make a transfer happen seems pretty contradictory to me. How much money goes back and forth between the world's clubs every year, paying fees forward in perpetuity, with the agents sifting their "share" at every turn.
Logged