Philip Coutinho left Brazil after international duty, got on a private plane to return home and started smiling.
He walked into training today smiling, joked around with Alberto Moreno (who handed him the news he was now LFC's first choice left back) and the smiling continued.
Whatever the fall out from his written transfer request, back injury, tears in Brazil and ultimately his lack of movement to Barcelona - the Liverpool manager is keeping things behind closed doors. He defended the player.
“I know what people think but Phil had a back problem a few weeks ago and couldn't train. He missed about 3 weeks of training.”
Klopp is used to his star players leaving at the end of every season and him refashioning his side at Dortmund - but Liverpool's refusal to budge presents not only the club but the manager with some fresh thinking to do.
The Liverpool boss backed his player and insisted that while he was training and playing for Brazil he is still not ready to face Manchester City - principally because he needs to be ready for the tough 7 games ahead.
When asked about Coutinho's trip to Brazil, Jurgen said:
“Yes he went away with the national team and trained normally but now we have to prepare for a normal season.
We have 7 games and we saw training this morning and thought ‘OK maybe we should use him immediately’ because he was really good, but that doesn’t make any sense
We have to continue like it's pre-season, not too long, but in a few sessions we have to give ourselves the tim. In the next month we have seven games.
"He showed up in a very, very good mood and looks really promising.
So the player is ok with staying at Liverpool after all. Barca painted a picture of Coutinho being depressed and greatly saddened by the collapse of his dream, playing for them. What a joke,Barca has become this summer. The player was badly advised by rogue agent Joorabchian and manipulated by Barca too, to push through the transfer. Hope the lesson FSG taught Barca would help them become more respectful of other clubs. Their bullying ways will never work with FSG and Liverpool in the future. At least they will be quiet with their tails between their legs until the next round of international games. Now let the EPL games begin again. It’s good to see Coutinho all smiles since he got on the plane to Liverpool after the international games. Now, Coutinho must have got his head screwed back right into place after the great Pele advised him to stay at Liverpool and achieve greater things. All is well that ends well.
Was Barcelona not telling us about themselves: depressed and saddened by what Nyemar and FSG did to them? I understand that the negiotiation that Barcelona claimed to have with Liverpool never happen. It was amongst Barcelona’s personnels themselves (Barcelona had negiotiation with Barcelona). That was why there was a ‘presentation’ of Couthino to their fans.