Liverpool Went From Good To Great Because Coutinho Left – Souness

Selling Philippe Coutinho to Barcelona 2 years ago is the best bit of business Liverpool has ever done, Graeme Souness has said.

He recently revealed that move proved that Klopp is the inspirational leader needed for the team to be successful.

According to him, success is never possible with good senior pros, and once Klopp realized that Coutinho was becoming a problem, he sold him immediately and replaced him with game changers like Alisson and Van Dijk.

He added that Liverpool went from a good team to a great team because of decisions like that.

His words, “The secret of consistency is driven by the manager.

“I never get fed up of saying this, you can’t be successful unless you have good senior pros. I think the senior pros are driving that consistency.

“’We can’t drop our standards’, as well as the manager. In terms of recruitment, it’s still the single biggest thing you have to get right at a football club.

“If you’re recruiting well, you’re getting leaders, you’re getting player who are talented, you get the right players in your club. That self-perpetuates itself to the marvellous team we have here. I seem to finish every sentence with ‘this team isn’t going anywhere, this team won’t be beaten for a while’.

“When you say what’s the most important signing, I think you can look back to when Liverpool went from a good team to a great team.

“They sold Coutinho and got £160 million or whatever it was, they got Alisson and they got Van Dijk and still had change left over. That’s got to be the best business this club has ever done.”