Gary Lineker has hit out at one strand of recent transfer speculation surrounding former Liverpool star Philippe Coutinho.
The Brazilian has struggled since his big-money move to Barcelona in January 2018, and continues to be linked with a summer transfer.
The 27-year-old is currently on loan at Bayern Munich, but there are doubts over whether the Bundesliga giants will opt to make the move permanent.
In 32 appearances for Bayern, Coutinho has scored nine goals and chipped in with eight assists, but does not appear to have a long-term future at Allianz Arena.
Chelsea, Manchester United, Everton and Leicester are a handful of Premier League clubs who are rumoured to be interested in Coutinho’s services.
And a recent report from Sky Sports claims Chelsea are one of a number of clubs who have been “offered the chance” to sign Coutinho from Barcelona when the transfer window reopens.
Lineker saw the report, and took to Twitter to question whether that is how things really work in the transfer market.
“This nonsense always makes me laugh,” tweeted Lineker.
“If a club wants to sell a player, they’d hardly limit it to a few clubs of their choosing.
“’Hi there Mr Abramovich, we want to sell you Coutinho and we don’t want him to go anywhere but Chelsea’.”
“’How considerate, we’ll take him’.”
