Barcelona’s desperation to sell Philippe Coutinho this summer could see the Brazilian move to the Emirates for less than the fee Arsenal paid for Nicolas Pepe, reports the Mirror.
Arsenal has become one of the teams with the strongest interest in rescuing Coutinho from his Barcelona nightmare.
The Mirror is also claiming that Arsenal will be contacting his agent as Mikel Arteta has requested that the club try and land the former Liverpool man.
This would be delightful news to Barcelona as they are desperate to get him off their books and create space for their summer business.
The Catalans landed Coutinho for around £140 million in the winter of 2018 after the Brazilian forced Liverpool to sell him.
However, his value has since dropped and the report claims that he could now join the Gunners for half that price.
Arsenal signed Nicolas Pepe for £72 million in the summer, so if Coutinho joins for £70 million, he would have cost Arsenal less than they paid for the struggling Ivorian.
Coutinho had his best spell as a footballer in the Premier League when he turned out for Liverpool. He was enjoying his best goal-scoring spell at the club before he left them to join Barcelona, and Arteta would be hoping that he can get him back to that sort of form.
Coutinho could be a perfect fit to Arsenal, only if the asked price will be decent! Barça must act to save the player’s career and not to recover they money back! It would be a matter of honor!
Why do we keep having these fantasy Coutino articles? Anyone know why? We all know, surely, there is not a cat in hells chance this expensive player will
end up with us , so why do we keep reading nonsense? I mean, come on, lets all get real and remember exactly who owns us! NEED I say more!
Jon, was just curious for your opinion on Coutinho on his footballing ability niif he joined us considering he has flopped big time at Barca and Munich. Barca play a lot with the ball while Munich are more direct, either system he has flopped. IMO even if he was affordable I would not prefer him, would prefer someone like Kai or someone with decent dribbling ability. This position may not be required this season as in all probabilities Ozil is staying so we cannot afford two luxury players – Ozil & Coutinho (leave aside their wages and perks). Also a big no to Ousmane Dembele, another big time flop, would prefer using Saka / Gabriel on the flanks then hiring Dembele.
Finally all these decisions rest with Mikel, we can only speculate and wish for something good for the club and fans.