Barcelona have told Philippe Coutinho he can leave for a cut-price £77million in the summer, amid interest from Chelsea, Liverpool and Tottenham.
According to the Daily Express, the Catalan giants are willing to lose a large sum of the £142m paid to Liverpool two years ago in order to offload Coutinho.
They claim Barcelona have dropped their valuation in hope of attracting Premier League interest and ultimately funding Quique Setien’s rebuild job.
It’s also noted that Bayern Munich won’t take up the £102million option to buy that was included in the Brazilian’s loan deal, so he’ll be on the market at the end of the season.
READ CHELSEA VERDICT
The 27-year-old hasn’t started in the Bundesliga champions’ last three league outings so I think it’d be very surprising to see his buy out clause triggered at the end of the campaign.
Coutinho has ultimately failed to impress in Germany, scoring seven goals and providing eight assists in 27 appearances at Bayern.
Although they aren’t the worst statistics, I don’t believe they justify a club splashing out £77million for his services.
Don’t get me wrong, he wouldn’t be at the Nou Camp if he wasn’t a good player and he was fantastic at Liverpool but I don’t think Coutinho will be able to repay that sort of fee wherever he ends up.
Overall, Chelsea could probably find cheaper alternatives elsewhere and a much more suited player in terms of the philosophy of youth involvement Frank Lampard has shown so far.
