Gianluca Di Marzio has corroborated claims that Chelsea are eyeing Philippe Coutinho to replace Eden Hazard… but there’s a catch.
Coutinho would not be a like-for-like replacement for Eden, with the Brazilian not being a natural left-winger.
However, he has both the star quality and creativity to soften the blow of losing the Belgium skipper, which makes him a viable target.
Barcelona are under no pressure to sell, though, being one of the world’s biggest with limitless financial power.
As a result, they’ve set their asking price far beyond Coutinho’s market value, at least so Di Marzio has claimed.
He claims that the figure they’re after is €150M, which works out at just over £130M. That’s a hell of a lot of cash.
Whether Chelsea would deem Coutinho worthy of that sort of expenditure is unclear. We certainly wouldn’t.
In order for this transfer to happen, Barca would surely need to be more realistic with their valuation of the 26-year-old.
Only time will tell how this one plays out.
