Hot potato Coutinho - Barca need some financial relief, Liverpool do not seem interested

Barcelona have a plan - get as many good players for free and get rid of all unwanted expenses as soon as possible.

Signing of Manchester City duo Kun Aguero - Eric Garcia for free has been made official and the Camp Nou team are also close to getting the Dutch midfielder Georginio Wijnaldum in a free transfer.

Another part of the plan is figuring out the enigma of what to do with Philippe Coutinho.

In order to pay off the debt they owe from his transfer, Barcelona have reportedly offered to send the Brazilian back to Liverpool.

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Back in 2018, Coutinho joined Barca in a deal worth up to 200 million USD (21.5 billion KSH). The agreement was that 16 billion KSH portion of the whole sum will be paid in add-ons.

Liverpool are still owed 6 billion KSH of that amount and due to the current bad financial situation at Blaugrana - Barcelona executives have proposed sending Coutinho back to Anfield in a bid to call it even, Spanish publication AS claim.

The 'problem' for Barca in the whole deal is that Liverpool has already re-directed the promised amount to a third party - therefor Barcelona's attempt to off-load Coutinho is pretty much the same as trying to sell him to any other side.

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During his five-and-a-half seasons spell with the Reds of Merseyside the Brazilian was a fan favourite.

He scored 54 goals in 201 appearances and was twice named player of the year between 2014 and 2016.

“I only have good things to say about Philippe, but I think he left Liverpool because he wanted to play for one of the two big Spanish clubs." Liverpool chairman Tom Werner said at the time.

“We tried to convince him that we had the club moving in the right direction and that he could experience great nights in the Champions League if he stayed in Liverpool.”

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Ironically, the following year, Liverpool went on to win the biggest European club competition.

Since arriving at Camp Nou, Coutinho has constantly struggled, failing to cement himself within the starting line up. Also, being injured more often than not did not help.

Philippe saw the 2019/20 campaign at Bayern Munich on loan - collecting 38 appearances in a season that the Bavarians ended with a treble of trophies.

His full-on return to Barca in 2020/21 was slowed down even more after a serious knee injury, which caused him record only 14 appearances in all competitions.