Everton set their sights on Barcelona’s Philippe Coutinho
Philippe Coutinho has a foot-and-a-half out the door at Barcelona as the Brazilian playmaker has failed to deliver since his arrival from Liverpool.
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He is one of the players with high wages that the Catalans are looking to offload. The only problem is finding a team willing to negotiate.
Enter Everton.
Everton set to take advantage of potential Barcelona fire sale.
According to Sport, Everton are poised to use Barcelona’s desperation to sell Coutinho and try to sign him on a significantly reduced fee. The report claims the Premier League side would be willing to spend close to €40 million for the player.
That is a heavily reduced fee from the €100 million-plus that Barcelona paid Liverpool back in 2017.
Coutinho has only played 14 games this season after suffering a serious injury against Eibar earlier in the year.
Despite getting surgery, his recovery process has not gone according to plan, and had to go undergo another surgery. He is currently recovering in Brazil.
Before his second surgery, the thought process was that he would be back with Barcelona towards the end of the season. That is no longer the case and it is very possible he has played his last game for the club.
His signing will go down as one filled with promise but ultimately failed. He never got acclimated to the team and was loaned out last season to Bayern Munich. He failed to impress with the German side and was brought back with manager Ronald Koeman willing to give him another shot.
Even when he was healthy, he had his ups and downs and was already losing his spot to Pedri before the injury.
It hasn’t worked out and an exit is now looking more than likely.
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Everton has signed former Barca players in the past. Recent examples include Lucas Digne, Yerry Mina, and Andre Gomes. Whether Joan Laporta and his board will accept the reported offer remains to be seen.