The first week of the winter transfer market saw Barcelona bring in Philippe Coutinho from Liverpool for a reported fee of 160 million euro.

Coutinho becomes Barcelona’s new record signing, beating the 145million euro they are expected to pay for Ousmane Dembele.

The massive spending from the Catalans is a sharp contrast from the philosophy of the club in recent times. Barcelona rejected the idea of signing Coutinho for 200 million euro last summer, claiming they wanted to invest more in La Masia.

But four months down the road, and no La Masia player is getting game time in La Liga (Jose Arnaiz is the first in the last game against Levante).

Rather they have now spent 160 million euro on Coutinho and there’s talk of another 100 million euro on Antoine Griezmann in the summer.

According to a report, Lionel Messi is against the idea of Barcelona spending another 100 million euro on a new attacker. The club have already agreed to spend €300 million (including add-ons) on two players capale of playing in attack and Leo thinks now is not the time to think of another attacker.

Manchester United were interested in the French attacker last year. But according to Sky Sport pundit, Guillem Balague, the Red Devils are no longer interested.

“Griezmann, they sent a message to his people that they’re not interested anymore,” he told Sky Sports’ Transfer Talk podcast.


“They weren’t that interested anyway… I think Barcelona will sign him.”