Thiago Alcantara hints Chelsea face transfer battle for £70m Philippe Coutinho: 'He's a phenomenon'

Transfer battle? Coutinho could stay in Munich after all
REUTERS
Tom Dutton5 May 2020

Thiago Alcantara has suggested Bayern Munich are keen to keep Philippe Coutinho at the Allianz Arena next season.

Coutinho has been on loan at Bayern this season, but the Bundesliga champions are now unwilling to take up the €120million permanent option agreed as part of original loan deal.

That means Coutinho will return to Barca this summer with the Liga club keen to offload him in a bid to boost their transfer kitty. The Brazilian will be made available for around €80million, and Chelsea are among a number of clubs keen on his signature.

Frank Lampard has identified the player as an alternative to priority target Jadon Sancho, though he could face surprise competition from Bayern after all.

"I know him well, he's very good," Thiago told Catalan newspaper La Vanguardia. "I've seen him play since he was 12 years old. I played against him in Brazil at football sala and I loved him.

"He lacks nothing. I like to play with players at a top level and he's a phenomenon. He's a great guy, really hard working, with unbeatable technique and incredible finishing.

"Players go through good moments and some not so good ones and he brings us a lot. We hope he's here next season too.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in