Philippe Coutinho spent the last season on loan at Bayern Munich and returned to Barcelona after wining the treble with the Bavarian club.
Prior to joining the Bundesliga side, Tottenham Hotspur were one of the clubs to show interest in the 28-year-old, with reports coming out of Spain suggesting Spurs wanted to take the attacking midfielder last summer.
Fast forward nearly a year, and the former Liverpool star continues to get linked with a move to the north London club as Fichajes.net provides us with the latest situation.
Coutinho last featured for Ronald Koeman’s side late in December as a knee injury has kept him out on the sidleines.
He was expected to return to the pitch for the final matches of this season, but the Brazil international’s comeback has been further delayed after undergoing a surgery earlier this week.
Barca’s earlier plan was to collect €40m from his sale in the summer as they believe the playmaker still has a market in the Premier League.
Unfortunately, undergoing the operation rules out his chances of featuring again this season and that has caused concerns at the Camp Nou, as this latest setback could rule out his sale in the summer and the Catalan club will have to postpone it by a year.
President Joan Laporta now plans to let the South American go out on loan in the next market, hoping that the club that takes him on a temporary deal decides to buy him in 2022.
The Spanish side’s only hope now is that Coutinho can be available for the pre-season so that they can find a new club who will be ready to take him on loan, mirroring what Real Madrid did with Gareth Bale last summer.
According to Fichajes.net, Tottenham are ‘precisely sounded’ as the ‘possible destination’ for Coutinho next season and Spurs could replicate the Bale deal for signing Coutinho.
During the Welshman’s loan stay with José Mourinho’s side, the Madrid based club continue to pay half of Bale’s salary.
With he is now expected to return to his parent club, Tottenham can use Bale’s salary money to take Coutinho on a loan deal, providing Barca pay part of the Brazilian’s wages.
In this way, Coutinho could be a likely replacement for Bale in the English capital club’s salary budget, but not in terms of the position they occupy on the pitch, since they have two very different playing styles.
