I know mate I'm struggling to get my head around it. There's a few in there that go with the old adage of not keeping a player who doesn't want to be here but what was the point of standing firm in the summer and selling the lad on the back of his most impressive and consistent spell in the 5 years he's been here. Makes no sense from a football perspective. If we sell him and then fail to make seasons champions league serious questions will rightly be asked. Playing with fire here.
I just fear that it has come to a point where the water between the two parties is just too deep. We don't know which promises were made when he signed the new contract, we don't know what was said behind the scenes during the whole summer saga, ...
Nothing has changed since the summer, so Coutinho must be behaving really badly in the negotiations behind the scenes. We can say that we as a club hold all the cards in this situation, but clubs never do unfortunately. Contracts aren't worth the paper they're printed on (or how does that saying go?).
It's pretty similar to the Van Dijk situation at Southampton and we're all too happy that he forced his move. We could indeed force him to stay, but we have no idea what the impact on his game will be. He has been playing well for the last few months, but will he still be after being denied his dream move twice in a few months? Van Dijk sucked in his last few months for Southampton. I can't see us selling him without having a plan in place to replace him though. So here's hoping...
Something has to be done at a higher level with regards to these longterm contracts and players refusing to play / pushing for a move this way. Not sure what, but surely this can't go on much longer. A contract should be a contract.
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