Philippe Coutinho has reportedly been offered to Arsenal on loan as the player seeks a return to the Premier League.
The Brazilian joined Barcelona from Liverpool in 2018 for an eye-watering fee that came close to £150m when all the various clauses were added up, but was soon considered surplus to requirements at the Camp Nou.
He spent last season on loan with Bayern Munich, making 34 appearances with a return of 9 goals and 8 assists.
Now, his future is up in the air again, and via a journalist who does seem to have some consistent information on players related to Kia Joorabchian – Coutinho’s agent – comes a report which says the 28 year old has been offered to English clubs, the most recent of which are Arsenal and Newcastle (still awaiting that influx of sweet, sweet oil money).
It’s easy to see how a connection to the Gunners would work. Joorabchian also represents current squad members David Luiz and Cedric Soares. He has had a long-standing working relationship with our Technical Director, Edu, and is close to the club’s Head of Football, Raul Sanllehi. He was even seen watching a game this season with both of them in the Arsenal Director’s Box.
Earlier this summer, Joorabchian said of Coutinho, “He has the desire to return to the Premier League at any point.
“It could be this year. We don’t know.”
Barcelona are reportedly keen to move him on permanently, but are open to another loan move to lighten the load on their own wage bill.
Whether Arsenal can afford to pay what Coutinho would want, and the various fees that accompany loan deals these days, remains to be seen, but given the various connections, it’s not one you could easily rule out. Bayern paid an €8.5m loan fee for his services, plus paid his entire salary for the season.
Earlier, Mikel Arteta spoke about recruitment, and praised Liverpool for the way they brought in the players that Jurgen Klopp needed.
Touching on the way they rebuilt, he said, “Obviously the first two years it took them some time to rebuild the squad and to create a new culture, a new philosophy, and a game model which suited the coach.
“Then they started to recruit every single player in relation to what they needed and that’s where I think they were really smart, because they bought a specificity in every position that was required to get strong.”
Whether Coutinho is a player who fits Arteta’s needs is open for debate, but we do have a lack of midfield creativity, Mesut Ozil remains sidelined with the manager saying nothing has changed with regards to his situation, and he might be someone who could offer something during this part of the process.
The question is whether the outlay required would be the best use of what appear to be increasingly limited transfer resources.
Let’s see.
Oh, God, another Kia player. Can’t someone tell him to f*** off? We don’t need any more has-beens!
Coutinho would be one of the best players on this squad on day one. He’s 28, not a has-been.
Just because he has a high-profile agent does not mean he is not a good player, or we wouldn’t benefit from having him. This is an instance where our relationships could really pay off and help improve the squad..
But is he the ideal player to compliment Arteta’s preferred squad/system? Do we want him as a winger or as an advanced CM in Arteta’s presumably preffered 4-3-3? If so, is he the best option available for that role or is it because of his agent that we may be considering him over other potential candidates?
I’m not against signing Coutinho and I do agree he’s clearly a highly talented player. But we absolutely MUST be buying him for the right reasons if we are to have a successful rebuild.
He’s better centrally, either as a CAM in a 4-3-3 or as a 10.
Where is there a CAM postition in a 4-3-3? please share
Instead of two box to box midfielders along one deep lying midfielder, you’ll have two deep and one as a 10.
The two CMs either side of the holding midfielder can be attacking mids. Man City mostly play like this, KdB and someone else, and they’re sometimes described as 8/10s. In Italian football it’s sometimes called a mezzala though that probably describes KdB more than Silva in terms of style of play.
Agree. He is brilliant, potentially, but to replace Saka? Pepe? Auba perhaps – but that would mean keeping Laca up front (fine with me) along with Eddie and… You know what. That would make sense.
Can we somehow offload Özil towards Spain again in the same sweep…
Don’t think he is the player who Liverpool had though.
We talk about how we need more output from midfield…Here is a player, although injured and not starting for parts of the season (due to player competition at Bayern which we certainly do not have), has scored more goals than any midfielder we have and contributed almost 10 assists. I think this is an absolute no-brainer if we could pull it off.
BUT he does have an agent we’ve been told to dislike. Let’s start Emile Smith-Rowe instead – he’s scored a goal for Huddersfield this season.
So is this what Edu du? get all’em Kia players
Hope he has a 7-year warranty.
Hahaha
Would he really want to join a team with no European football even if we could afford him?
This “players make their team choices based on CL football” is a myth”.
I guess, many people said the same thing about Ozil, few years ago. It is money first then quality of life in the city for the player and his family. Of course, players use that in their PR. In my CV, I said that I was looking for a dynamic and fast-growing company blah blah blah. Where I work isn’t that dynamic.
Hahaha ?
?
That’s MacDonalds for you?
☠️☠️?
Great comment!
Don’t let your boss read this my friend. Otherwise, you may not have a job by next week
At least he would be playing almost every game
When not sidelined by injury. All the Orcs in the Premier league will be gunning for him just like the hairy thugs do on all of our players with the collusion of the officials. Paranoia, or conjecture?
Coutinho is good. He knows the EPL, can curl a wicked free kick and also create. The wages may be crazy though.
Can he play in CM as the ‘KDB’ role for us?
I think Saka is currently our best KDB and shouldn’t be so far forward
If we can offload Ozil than maybe, maybe it will be a good idea to get Coutinho on loan + keep ESR so he can learn and adapt to the PL…
ah, so many questions and so little answers about our future…
None of this matters when we have to continue playing 3 at the back because none of our defenders are good enough to play as a 2.
Offload Ozil, get Coutinho.
Right, right! Its just that easy…like a video game.Boom. Done.
We’re not talking about actual sport, in the depths of a global crisis that has totally screwed every business model on earth (except for Amazon).
What could be easier….
We could pay off his entire contract to get rid of him. It would be the best thing for the squad to get rid of this horrible example, the highest paid player pouting around and relaxing on the sidelines, who clearly doesn’t have the slightest interest in helping this club. He’s going to get his money no matter what, at least get him out of the club and send the message that if you don’t care about the club and you don’t work hard for the club, then you will be gone, period, no matter who you are and no… Read more »
Tbf it’s hard to sell Ozil on FM too
I’d rather we found a longer term solution to that number 10 role. Coutinhio would be with us on loan on huge wages.
Nobody wants Ozil. At least not at 350k per week. And he’s obviously perfectly content to stay, even if it means not getting any games. We’re stuck with Ozil till the end of his contract.
Take away the fact that it’s another Kia J linked player, I wouldn’t be against this. We desperately need a good-world class attacking midfielder to play in front of two of Ceballos, Xhaka and Torreira. If we paid the same loan fee as Bayern did, it’s probably just about affordable for us. It’s especially worth it if we can offload Ozil and free up the wages. Having said that this might just be a link that’s a load of bollocks. If he gets injured soon then it’ll definitely be happening
The fee is one thing. His wages are quite another…
Yeah clearly he is so world class, he is being offered all over the shop.
Barcelona’s board being stupid doesn’t mean the player isn’t world class. These losers discarded Cesc after a couple of seasons and are now wasting Griezmann’s prime. I’d gladly take Coutinho if he could perform somewhat as well as he did during his stint at Liverpool.
I’m reminded how Barcelona kept half a billion euros worth of world class players on their bench for an entire season under Guardiola. Ibrahimovic being one of them. It’s a talent wasting club for sure.
I’d rather have Ramsey back from Juventus.
He’s on ginormous wages, constantly injured and generally pretty shit when he isn’t. No thanks.
A bit long and sorry about bad English. It is clear to me that Ozil sucks all the positive energy / synergy out of the club. He takes salary of 4 players. That hinders extending offers to other top players like Ramsey, Auba etc… The guy has has had issues with Last 3 managers…and gives the vibes that he doesn’t care about the club. The manager has to carry that burden in every single press conference. He indulges in Politics of other countries like Turkey and Arsenal has to face the backlash. As far as I remember he was also… Read more »
Great analysis and a sentiment I share. I also don’t think your English is as bad as you think.
Thank you: I had stopped reading “fans”‘ comments and you have just reminded me why.
Absolute and utte rubbish.
What, you’re a mind reader? Or wait … even better – a fortune teller!!
That’s so useful.
Maybe we should sue that fucker Gazidis for dereliction of duty. What a stupid contract.
And if Ozil want to be the 2nd Winston Bogarde, who is happy to sit, collect wages and do nothing, then let him rot in the U18 team. Put him on the bench for the U18 team. Let’s see how much he values “Brand Ozil”
Haha He’ll never forgive whoever signed that off, probably have his President buddy knock you off.
Ozil doesn’t pick the team. He probably wants to play, especially after watching the shit we served up against Leicester and Tottenham. If he’s not picked, he’s not picked. In which case, he might well enjoy putting his feet up – I think we all would! Doesn’t necessarily mean he’s content to do just that though.
If he’s not getting picked, what else is the guy supposed to do? Rig up the tv cameras? Grab a mic and add to the crowd noise? Sort out the drinks breaks? This ‘Sucking the positive energy out of the club’ bullshit is laughable. That’s a crime you might consider laying at the feet of The Three Stooges. You know, guys who have actually been out on the field, playing.
To be fair to Ozil, China’s concentration camps, ethnic cleansing, and the like are appalling.. they make the treatment of folk by western police forces look positively loving in comparison. Ozil does like Erdogan tho, and he’s a turd and aspiring fascist who has plenty of blood (esp Kurdish) on his hands so…
It’s also crazy that some fans criticise Ozil for sticking his head in politics but are happy to watch all players bow before games.Very selective in my opinion.
He was not involved in controversy about the Chinese government, he was one of the only players in the world to speak about the concentration camps the Chinese have for muslims.
Whatever issues we may have with Ozil, we still need to respect his humanitarian efforts.
Here we go again. Arsenal need a quality centre back and commanding midfielder, so let’s look at more tiny lightweight attacking midfielders.
We have two (real potentials) in Saliba and Mari.
We’re gonna buy more CBs with Mustafi, Sokratis, Holding, and Chambers still on the books? HIGHLY unlikely.
Otherwise, barring that one quibble, SPOT ON, sir.
I guess I’d been hoping a lot of those defenders would be shipped out; a little easier in my mind that reality:-)
Easy to say “offload Ozil” he’s gonna sit on that 350k pw until his contract expires, coutinho is a creative player but I feel his wages will be out of our reach whilst Mesut is still at the club.
We really need to sort out the defence as a priority.
Sitting on his gold like a Fortnite-playing Smaug the dragon
Top post. The central defence is the priority. Truth be told, it’s been the top priority for the past decade. There’s also a reason we haven’t qualified for the ECL in the past four seasons. His name is Mustafi.
No, central midfield is the priority
That is the reason we have screwed CL for the last decade, not the defence
We had koscielny mertesacker and still didn’t give them enough protection
Definitely an upgrade on what we have.
Have you seen him play over the last 2-3 seasons? Özil is a fighter compered to him. Stay the fuck away from this guy, Arsenal.
Arg stop being ridiculous
this is bull shit deal. We have ozil who’s almost similar to coutinho. No way we can keep them both.
People really need to separate current Ozil from highlight reel Ozil.
Last time Özil played, he created a great assist for Laca. Oh, sorry, yes, I know, Özil, sorry… yes, he is bad, pouah….
I am comparing current ozil to current coutinho.Both have being shit ! we will replace a dog turd with cat turd.
Agreed. The highlight reel player got picked. The current player doesn’t get picked. There’s a difference in there somewhere, if you have a rummage….
Offers goals from midfield.
yeah, scored plenty of them at Barcelona and Bayern. NOT.
This is worrying. I might be alone in this, but I never really rated Coutinho. He had some spectacular moments in the Prem for Liverpool, but I always thought he was a form player rather than just a quality player.
He’s also going to rely on us having a lot of the ball and getting the ball to him quickly, in a number 10 position between the lines – which is fine, but we don’t really play that way anymore and I don’t think he’s going to be that useful for ball recovery either.
Would Barca be open to a swap for Ozil??? No of course not. What I can’t understand is why Coutinho’s wages would be so high, his club don’t want him, the last club he was loaned to don’t want him and he is being hawked across Europe, with no eager takers. Surely that should mean lower wages and trying to revive a flagging career? Unless he is being a pure mercenary, in which case he can f*ck off, we’ve had this dance with Ozil and it’s shit and boring as hell.
Just a pipe dream, but maybe we could trick Barca into a straight Coutinho-Ozil swap for the season. Convince them they could get something useful from Ozil. We’d save about 5 million pounds in wages for the year, so they’d surely want Arsenal to kick in some cash.
Özil seems to be good as political activist lately, so maybe they could use him as spearhead for a Catalunia independence campaign. Otherwise I don’t see what he could offer them on or off the pitch.
Maybe a money laundering scheme via his salary, if needed.
A lot of Positivity shown towards Coutinho below. It’s a 100% no from me, no no no. Same answer if we were linked with James Rodriguez. These players don’t have a part to play anymore, too slow and teams can’t have luxury players anymore. We need to build a squad of hardworking, willing professionals. Coutinho is very good at football, but the game has changed away from him. If we sign him I’d be even more worried about what this club is trying to actually do on the pitch.
Let’s take the rough with the smooth, people. Kia J is all about Kia J, but he is a legit Gooner. Some part of his blackened, feculent soul wants us to actually win. Coutinho on his day can make things happen up front. A player of his calibre will be a delight to Laca, Auba and Pepe. I wouldn’t be surprised if this deal is already done. Why else would Luiz have been able to score a 1 year extension? Nothing to sniff at, this. Would be a game-changer. With Coutinho and Saliba in place, right there I reckon that’s… Read more »
Very possible, probably leveraged Coutinho into the off-the-record agreement. His forward skills could be great in our structured unit and above all, probably already done
You’re delusional if you think Coutinho is just gona rewind the years and failed moves and all of a sudden propel us up the table! He grew slowly into a very good player at Liverpool, but he need’s a system around him and at this stage it’s not clear he can rebuild his career to where he was prior to his transfer. We need to move away from one dimentional players that can “on their day” do something. We need versatile players in the middle, and players on the up not on the down.
Liverpool were massively aided by the silly money they received from Barcelona for Coutinho, kick-started by the Neymar transfer which they spent very shrewdly on the whole. We’ve got players whose value is depreciating, ever more so in a post covid market. First step is getting the high wages of the wage bill & removing deadwood like Ozil & Kolasanic. If we can resign Auba that would be massive as replacing him is going to be nigh on impossible by the transfer market. The rebuild is a massive task but the club have to start with the defence & midfield.… Read more »
I can see it now… Sunday afternoon at Anfield… Kop end… Coutinho smashes in a 25 yard free kick and silences all of those bell ends ?? I’d love to see that!
I doubt we have the money to pay the £200k plus wages he will demand.
We need defensive players at this point in time.
Actually we need a new defence period and not a free loader. Besides, all of our “loan” deals have been hardly inspiring. Celabos is playing well because he is in the shop window – sorry to be cynical but its the truth…
Liverpool really pushed on after Coutinho left.
That says something about the player..
Not really….it says more about their recruitment staff and the players (Van Dijk and Allison) they used his sale to purchase.
Never really got these expensive loan signings. They gobble up the money you could use to actually tie someone down for 4 years. In the short term they might do a job for you but then you’re left with the same hole to fill after a season, you’re just less well off. I hope Ceballos stays, he’s an example of something working out but if he doesn’t we are back to square one.
Tend to work out well for the agents ?
If we can get good value for the wages and the fee, I think this makes a lot of sense. He’s not become a bad player overnight and even his 9 goals and 8 assists blows our current options out of the water. Could see him either as a LCM in a 4-3-3 with Saka/ESR deputising, or as an out-and-out 10.
It’s a hard pass for me. He has one skill, which is shooting from outside the box just to the left of the goal. He literally doesn’t know how to score goals inside the box and his passing/dribbling is just ok.
Ozil v2. There has to be a reason why it didnt work out for him at Barcelona and why Bayern dont want to keep him. I’d prefer if the Arsenal were not the ones to find out that reason.
Given who is in charge, and the fact that the only question mark on this going through is whether it would be sensible to spend such a large amount of money at a time when we have minus money, I would say this is definitely going to happen.
Considering our midfield offers us NOTHING in the final third we most definitly think on it and if the numbers right do it, did I hear the other day that out midfield was second last in the Prem for goal contributions this season? Considering they can barely defend that’s shocking
Please let’s not get him Arsenal..we need less weak minded, individualistic, shot merchant one way players! not more!
I know how good he was for Liverpool but he’s just not suited for the modern way…and besides we need volume in midfiled, we got enough threat (saka signed da ting)
Yeah. Saka and Pepe are ours. Build on them. Spend shitloads of cash on defenders. Like we have said for.. What.. 10 years or so, it feels like..
overrated player
Liverpool were completely taking the piss when they set the price for him to go to Barca, and Barca were mad stupid fools to pay it
£40m player, a competent cog in a good side, nothing more – NO THANK YOU
You can’t sign a Coutinho, whilst playing 3 at the back
Greater than 75% here say No to Coutinho. I’m with Them. He’s 28 on a downward trajectory. He does not offer anything to the squad for a rebuild especially on a loan deal. He’s like Ozil. He’s not a leader. He will not pick the team up by its bootstraps and will the team onto victory.If we’re looking at near 30 year old players I would rather bring Ramsey back FFS …
Too be honest,unless we win the fa cup, we have no money(apparently).
So we are only going to be able to do swaps or loan deals,if Barcelona will pay a good percentage of his wages,then I’m all for it.
Masks are great.
Sorry forgot to say that, we will only be in Europe
next season, if we win the fa cup
Sorry pissed
We don’t need a playmaker type frankly. What we need IMO is someone(arguably two) with exceptional technical skills. We have needed these types of players frankly even during 2015 when we added Santi and Alexis but neglected to balance the team out on the right flank. Pepe is not it. For 72m, he rarely gets by his man or holds the ball up for us. Auba is also very loose with the ball. We need players who can create their own chances and take on 2 opponents on their own if need be. As I mentioned we had opportunity with… Read more »
Give him 250k a week a lil less than ohh no zill and we’re good for a top four finish
Haven’t we already got in the side one very expensive “high-grade” attacking midfielder that’s been deemed surplus by a top Spanish team? As they say, “fool me once…”
imo, the fact that we really need defensive players does not mean we do not need offensive players too. Coutinho is world class and we currently do not have more than one i believe.