Coutinho and Sanchez Need to Park Personal Ambition to Focus on Job in Hand

As a peerless orator, legendary Liverpool manager Bill Shankly could play a crowd like Ludwig van Beethoven did a piano. After Liverpool won the FA Cup in 1974, he stood on the steps of the city's St George's Hall and hushed the 100,000 supporters before him into revered silence.



With one hand in his pocket and the other poking the air defiantly, even the Liver Birds strained to hear his every word. "Since I came here to Liverpool, and to Anfield, I have drummed it into our players time and again that they are privileged to play for you," he said, before demonstrating a Pinteresque command of the pregnant pause to add: "And if they didn't believe me, they believe me now."

In January last year, Philippe Coutinho was similarly stirring in his rhetoric about Liverpool Football Club. After signing a new five-contract to become their highest-paid player ever, he could not have been more gushing about Liverpool had he broken out into an impromptu rendition of Ferry Cross the Mersey and revealed a new Cilla Black-inspired sleeve.

According to the Daily Mail's Lee Clayton, he said:

"No need to wait. I know. I live this every day, I can smell it. I see the ambition of the club, my team-mates, the manager. I am living it, seeing it.

"I understand what Liverpool means. We can say [Kenny] Dalglish, [Ian] Rush, [Alan] Hansen, [Graeme] Souness, [Luis] Suarez, [Steven] Gerrard. To have signed a new contract at this club, my goal is to be thought of one day in the same way as these players."

His coup de grace on the back of handing in a transfer request six months later, amid Barcelona's determination to make him the second most expensive player of all time, is the line: "You define the success of a player by his loyalty or his titles." It seems the latter beat the former into submission once he started to smell Catalonia.


While Reds manager Jurgen Klopp insists he will "100 per cent" welcome Coutinho back into the fold with open arms, one suspects Shankly would have done so with a rifle. Joking aside, to watch the Scot talk with such fire and truth makes the platitudes of today's players, of which Coutinho is no worse than many others, seem hollow to the point of having no meaning. 

To even suggest any aspect of sport or society, in general, could heed values of the past is to invite an avalanche of criticism, usually accompanied with an accusation of being "yer da." To laugh at the idea lessons can be learnt from a bygone era implies the present generation has discovered all the answers. Solipsism explains why the behaviour of players in the current climate merits barely a shrug.

Klopp's weary resignation over the situation seems to have been adopted by a majority. The general consensus from Steven Gerrard, to Jamie Carragher, to a large sway of supporters, to probably in all likelihood the manager and the board, is Coutinho owes them another season then all debts are cleared.

Apparently, Gerrard's reading of the situation softened when he found himself bare-chested on the streets of Anfield with no one to watch him burn his Coutinho shirt, as some had done to his following a dalliance with Chelsea in July 2005. Shankly would have lent him a light.

In his autobiography (via the Guardian) Gerrard describes how the stress of the situation had him, "eating paracetamol like Smarties" with supporters gathering at Anfield and the club's Melwood training complex to protest en masse. 

While no one wants to regress to a situation whereby footballers are popping pills like Pac-Man, such dead-eyed pragmatism on the part of supporters feels almost as passionless as it does enlightened. Talk of excusing Coutinho having his head turned on the grounds he's Brazilian, and all South Americans love Barcelona and Real Madrid, is like letting off a married man's affair on the grounds gentlemen prefer blondes.

Liverpool might not be Barcelona, but historically they are an institution just the same. While it's true that an elite footballer's peak years open up just the slightest window to join one of Spain's big two, and there is sympathy for Coutinho in that respect, restriction of movement, in general, is caused by a player having signed a lengthy contract. You can't have your cake and eat it, springs to mind.

Players, of course, would argue clubs are just as ruthless as they are, often more so. Even the best have a shelf life, with Roy Keane's embattled defence of the manner in which one-time team-mate Jaap Stam was shown the door by Manchester United a case in point. Though one suspects Keane could equally have been talking about himself—and perhaps was.

"His transfer to Lazio illustrates how little power footballers have in the game. Contracts mean nothing," he said, per the Telegraph. "He has discovered that, to football clubs, players are just expensive pieces of meat. The harsh realities remain, and when a club decide they want to sell, there is little you can do once the wheels are in motion."


There's no doubt the manner of Luis Suarez's departure before him could do Coutinho a favour. A summer of sulking in 2013, after Liverpool rejected a £40 million offer from Arsenal for the Uruguayan, preceded a campaign in which his individual brilliance took Brendan Rodgers' side to within a win of the Premier League title. He left for Barcelona a year on with his reputation restored, while Liverpool recouped an extra £35 million.

Manchester United famously got an extra 12 months out of Cristiano Ronaldo in 2008, on the promise he could move to Real Madrid the following summer. It is not unfeasible Coutinho could do something similar, though only if he doesn't spend the season haunted by what might have been.


The Brazilian will miss Sunday's game against Arsenal at Anfield due to a virus. Love sickness is seemingly now a tangible medical condition, with Barcelona's impending fourth and final bid of £138 million unlikely to alleviate the symptoms.

Though whether a new offer materialises in light of Barcelona having agreed a deal worth as much as up to £110 million for Borussia Dortmund's Ousmane Dembele, according to Sky Sports, remains to be seen. Many believe it is Liverpool who need their temperature taking for turning down such astronomical sums.  

Maybe the love bug is contagious given Southampton defender Virgil van Dijk has also suffered a terrible bout of it recently. The Holland international is training alone at St Mary's, having said his mental state isn't right. That's no surprise given his head spun off its axis when Liverpool made their interest known. Presumably, he has similarly forgotten he signed a six-year contract at Southampton last summer.

The manner of Liverpool's overt courting was such it now means they cannot be too precious over how Barcelona are pursuing Coutinho like the proverbial dog on heat.

Regardless of whether a knickerless Barca have spent the summer crossing and uncrossing their legs to leave him more flustered than the fat detective in Basic Instinct who isn't Michael Douglas, when he puts on that Liverpool shirt, he should heed Shankly's words. It is a privilege to do so. It is often said that it is unrealistic to expect players to love the badge like supporters; it hardly seems unreasonable to ask them to respect it.

Arsenal's main man, Alexis Sanchez, who like the other two has also yet to appear this season, could play a part at the weekend having returned to training after an abdominal injury. One can imagine he did so wrapped in bubble wrap and sporting a crash helmet, just in case Manchester City are still in the bushes surveying the situation.

Jermaine Jenas is usually one of the more erudite of pundits, but his recent comments about Sanchez and Coutinho seem hopelessly hyperbolic.

"Sanchez and Coutinho fall into the same bracket for me—if you lose them, you might as well pack your bags and go home now. They're too important," he said on BT Sport, per the Daily Express.

Why stop there, JJ? Surely if this nightmarish dystopia ever came to light, the only solution would be to fold both clubs with immediate effect. No one disputes the 256-year combined history of the two clubs counts for something, and the 31 league titles, 21 FA Cups and five European Cup wins hold the odd memory for a fair few, but contemplating life without a couple of forwards that hanker after pastures new is just too unbearable to think about.

Given Liverpool have scored 10 goals in four games in his absence, it's not inconceivable Coutinho may have to play his way back in. Just think what £138 million could buy to shore up a back line that has shifted six goals over the same period.

In Thursday's address to the media, Gunners boss Arsene Wenger insisted Sanchez is in the right frame of mind to play, despite having repeatedly stated a desire to move to a club that can offer UEFA Champions League football.

It was after the same fixture last season when the full extent of Sanchez's unhappiness came to light. Wenger had dropped him for the 3-1 defeat at Anfield after he had publicly shown frustration with his team-mates during the previous week's 5-1 loss to Bayern Munich. It backfired, with the Frenchman suffering the ignobility of having to summon Sanchez from the bench in chasing a point they never came close to rescuing.

Over the summer Sanchez picked up the same bug as Coutinho and Van Dijk. Unable to return to training on time despite an extended break, Sanchez uploaded an image of himself to Instagram wearing a wool scarf and jumper indoors. A protruding lip and accompanying "Enfermo" and "Sick" caption completed the picture. At least his dog had the good grace to look sheepish.

"He has always been focused on his job, he loves to play football and I don't think he is too disturbed by all the [external] noises that happen," said Wenger, per the Telegraph. "Players at that level are used to it now; some deal better with it than others but I don't think he is too bothered by that."

Leicester City's Riyad Mahrez is bucking the trend in terms of wantaway players this season, in that he has pitched up and put in a shift. The winger arguably has more to prove than any of the aforementioned, given he was almost as bad last season as he was brilliant the one before it, but then none of Sanchez, Coutinho or Van Dijk have either a Premier League winners' medal or a PFA Player of the Year trophy.

"When there's all the speculation, it's hard for players to get their heads round it," Foxes manager Craig Shakespeare said last weekend, per the Telegraph. "For me, it should be quite easy. You perform and if you are asked to represent the football club that you are paid by, then you do that."

As tedious as it is for managers, the soap-opera dimension provided by transfers is for many consumers their main reason for tuning in. It feels indicative of football's shifting landscape that the actual matches for not an inconsiderate number seem to be something to be endured; a necessary but slightly tedious hiatus from perpetual transfer talk. Perhaps when transfers can be made mid-game, allowing a player to play for both clubs over the course of 90 minutes, a utopia for the masses will finally be realised.

It would be melodramatic to call the current wave of big-name players forcing the issue of their futures an epidemic, and it's not a new phenomenon, but there have been enough instances over the summer to make the moneymen nervous.

In an interesting piece about one-man wrecking ball Diego Costa, the Guardian's Barney Ronay discussed how the Chelsea man's self-imposed exile in Brazil could have serious and far-reaching implications for football's transfer system. Twenty-two years on from the European Court of Justice ruling in favour of Jean-Marc Bosman, could the line in the sand be about to shift again to give players even greater rights over their employers?

Ronay writes: "Costa's lawyer has already suggested he will use "all legal mechanisms" to get the move he wants. How would this work in practice? In the real non-footballing world it seems laughable you could be denied the right to leave your job and work for another employer, or told only certain selected future employers are acceptable." 

New Manchester City goalkeeper Ederson made a similar largely under-the-radar point when he told Omnisport (via the Liverpool Echo): "I think Coutinho has to choose the best for him. It is not the club that decides for him, the final decision is his."

As more footballers talk of controlling their own destiny, clubs will no doubt be getting their in-house lawyers to scrutinise just how watertight player contracts really are outside of the context of the industry.

No wonder Premier League clubs are thought to be broadly in favour of bringing forward the end of the transfer window so it ends before the season gets underway. Three weeks into the new campaign, managers are spending more time talking about players who aren't playing than those who are.

If Coutinho wants that move to Barcelona, he needs to ensure Klopp is talking about him for the right reasons from now until the end of the season. Starting with getting that sickness bug well and truly out of his system.

And if he needs any inspiration to remind himself he hasn't got it so bad, there are worse places to start than the video of Shankly addressing the people of Liverpool. After all, these are Coutinho's people, too.