Philippe Coutinho has been strongly linked with a move to Arsenal in the current window, but Barcelona are now set to keep him.
The Brazilian international played his part in winning the Champions League with Bayern Munich last month, scoring twice in eliminating his parent club Barca in semi-final before going on to beat Paris Saint-Germain in the final.
There was much talk of the player eyeing a return to England, having flourished with Liverpool previously, but the Catalan club are now set to try and give him another chance to succeed in Spain.
Marca insist that the club have now changed their mind, and have removed the midfielder from their loan list, but claim that he could well leave the club but only if a large offer comes in for his signature, a fee which will no doubt be outside our budget for the summer.
We have already signed Willian on a free transfer from Chelses, who will already have boosted our attacking options, but Coutinho would still have been a coup with Mikel Arteta known to want strong competition in each area of the pitch.
A loan with an option to buy was always the most likely target for Arsenal if we were serious about bringing Coutinho to the club this summer, with our transfer budget needing to be concentrated on other areas of the team, such as in central midfield and at centre-back.
We have already arranged deals to bring in Gabriel Magalhaes also this summer, but are currently working on offloading some players before splashing out on a new central midfielder or two also.
Would Coutinho have been a guaranteed starter in our playing squad?
Patrick
OT, we are here laughing aboutman u 3rd kit, someone says it’s Zebra eco friendly suit to confuse the rival
Ad another is like it’s zebra crossing for PEP from man u to man City twice
He would’ve boosted our team but I hope that our players will step up and start to be creative in the midfield.