When a football club loses their best player, the team are automatically weakened, but one man thinks that the opposite will happen to Liverpool following the departure of Philippe Coutinho.
Throughout the summer, the Brazilian attracted the attention of Barcelona, but the Reds stood firm and refused to sell.
Despite fighting so hard to keep the 25-year-old at Anfield, Liverpool eventually conceded and agreed a deal with the Catalan giants.
Widespread reports, including one from BBC Sport, claimed that the transfer was worth a mammoth £142m.
Once Kylian Mbappe’s loan move to Paris St Germain becomes permanent at the end of the season, Coutinho will be the third most expensive footballer in history.
Allowing their star player to leave the club mid-season is not ideal from Liverpool’s perspective, but former Manchester City midfielder Joey Barton thinks that the team will be better off.
The Merseyside outfit have plenty of attacking talent at their disposal, with Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane, Roberto Firmino and Adam Lallana all in Jurgen Klopp’s team.
While speaking on talkSPORT, Barton explained why he thought that the departure of Coutinho, who scored 12 goals in 20 appearances in all competitions this season, will not hurt Liverpool.
“Klopp was having an issue, certainly in the Liverpool games I had seen, of getting Coutinho, Mane, Salah and Lallana all into the same side. It is going to be Mane and Salah either side of Firmino and now he has got only a smaller issue of does he play Wijnaldum or Lallana.
“I think it has actually helped Klopp out. He knew he had a player who wanted away, he was getting a load of money for him, he knew he would be able to reinvest in the side.
“It is going to sound bizarre to say this because Coutinho was mercurial for them at times but they could actually end up being a better team, a more cohesive team, without Coutinho. I don’t think he is as good as Hazard. Salah has been more influential than him this season, certainly with his goals.”