Ally McCoist claimed Liverpool getting rid of Phillipe Coutinho ended up being the making of them.
The talkSPORT pundit claimed the Brazilian playmaker departing in 2018 to join Barcelona saw the club invest “unbelievably wisely” in the likes of Virgil Van Dijk and Alisson.
McCoist added that he thought Coutinho was the perfect example of how a club could sell a top player for the right price in order to improve despite losing a fantastic talent.
“I think his departure was the making of Liverpool,” said McCoist on talkSPORT (8:49am, Wednesday June 26th).
“We talk about recruitment being so important and there has never been a finer example of that, getting rid of a top player for a price that suited you and reinvesting it unbelievably wisely (Van Dijk and Alisson).
“And there is the perfect example of it.”
OPINION
McCoist was making the remarks while debating the current goings on at Liverpool’s archrivals Manchester United. With L’Equipe previously reporting that Paul Pogba wanted to leave Man United due to concerns over their lack of Champions League football, McCoist claimed it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing that a high-profile talent wanted to leave Old Trafford. This led to him hailing Liverpool for how they dealt with Coutinho leaving Anfield in order to join Barcelona. Barcelona spent £142million on signing Coutinho from Liverpool, as per BBC Sport, and it’s fair to say that McCoist is right to claim Jurgen Klopp’s side have improved since his exit. While Reds fans were probably worried about how their side would cope without the playmaker when he left in 2018, after all, he scored 54 goals and registered 45 assists in 201 outings for the club, it all worked out for the best. Liverpool appeared to spend the money gained from selling Coutinho on Van Dijk and Alisson, and they have both been fantastic. Van Dijk won EA Sport’s Premier League player of the season in his 2018/19 campaign and helped the Reds rack up 19 clean sheets in his 38 league appearances; whereas Alisson won the Golden Glove award for keeping the most clean sheets.
