Jurgen Klopp has explained why he felt he could not stand in the way of Philippe Coutinho’s move to Barcelona forever.
Neymar’s shock departure to Paris Saint-Germain in the summer of 2017 prompted the Spanish giants to finally follow up on long-standing interest in Liverpool’s influential No.10.
However, they were met by firm resistance from the Reds, whose options in attacking midfield had recently been thinned by the loss of Adam Lallana to injury.
Coutinho was subsequently forced to wait until the following January to seal a £142m move to Camp Nou, but Klopp insists he had no intention of preventing the Brazilian sealing a dream transfer in the long term.
"I really respected Phil's switch from the first second," the German told the Pure Football Podcast.
"Not that I do that all the time but it felt oh wow that could be difficult.
"So it's not about yes we signed a new contract so many weeks before that but it was really clear he would not have asked me for any other club but for this club, there was no chance.
"Then we had to be hard in the summer because we had no other solution. We lost Adam Lallana [to injury] in that time as well, we would have lost two players.
"That's not possible, you cannot solve that on the transfer market.
"He was open to that [staying] and that was really cool. Then you have to be fair in the window and say we can do it, we don't like it but we can do it."
Having failed to secure a regular starting spot in his one-and-a-half seasons at Barca, Coutinho is now out on loan at Bayern Munich.
So, could a permanent return to Anfield ever be on the cards? Judging by Klopp’s tone, it does not appear so.
"Phil was our boy for a long time. We respect him a lot and wish him all the best," he added.
"That's how football should be. That's the most important thing the club showed in that moment."
