Jurgen Klopp must have known his pre-match press conference ahead of Liverpool vs Manchester City would be dominated by Philippe Coutinho news.

Coutinho recently completed a £142 million move to Barcelona and now questions are being asked of how the Reds will react.

Will Klopp sign a replacement in January? Or will he wait until the summer when Naby Keita completes his pre-agreed move from RB Leipzig?

Only Klopp knows and the German explained on Friday that the right decisions must be made in January to deal with the situation.

"If we do it (sign a replacement), it has to be the right decision," said Klopp. "We don't have to replace him as such, we will still have 11 players.

"I don't want to sound disrespectful, he was here for five years, we will miss him. But we want to play good football without Phil.

"We had fantastic games with him and not so good games with him, and the same when he didn't. We go with open eyes. We will not make crazy things."

It's well known that Liverpool and Klopp wanted to keep Coutinho until the summer at least, but that was never going to happen.

Reports from Spain even suggested Coutinho was so desperate to join Barcelona in January that he faked an injured and refused to play for Liverpool.

Well, Klopp now appears to have addressed the rumours of Coutinho's strike by saying there was no chance of him playing and that he "wasn't ready to do it anymore".

"There was no other option," added a defeated Klopp. "We tried everything to convince him to stay here and carry on together.

"It was his dream and it is the truth when I say he would only leave for one club. We were fighting until the last second and tried everything.

"I knew it would come up again in the transfer window and I knew it would be very difficult. Does it make sense? Do I think we can still use him? It was 100 percent clear, no chance.

"He wasn't ready to do it anymore. He did fantastic in the first half of the season after what happened in the summer."

Make of that what you will, but it sounds like Coutinho really was hell bent on joining Barcelona and didn't have it in him to play for Liverpool anymore.

The 25-year-old may not have outright refused to play, but it's clear he'd finally had enough.