While Liverpool fans fully understand Philippe Coutinho’s desire to sign for Barcelona, they don’t particularly like the way in which he’s forced the move.

After all, the Brazilian jeopardised Liverpool’s season before it even started by handing in a transfer request on the eve of the campaign.

And after the club insisted he wasn’t for sale, the midfielder took things even further.

Coutinho didn’t play for the entirety of the summer transfer window - missing several league matches as well as the crucial Champions League qualifiers against Hoffenheim - after complaining of a back injury.

He then miraculously recovered for Brazil’s World Cup qualifiers.

Whilst on international duty, Brazil doctor claimed that Coutinho’s back pain was emotional, rather than physical.

"Coutinho back problem? He is okay now. The back problem was a matter of stress, it was something emotional,” Michael Simoni said.

"The uncertainty about his future led him to feeling stressed. Everything is solved now.”

So, was Coutinho really injured?

WHAT LIVERPOOL DID AFTER HIS BACK SCAN

Well, the Independent have produced a report on ‘The inside story of Philippe Coutinho's Barcelona transfer.’ And perhaps you won’t be too surprised to discover that Coutinho never actually had a bad back at the start of the season.

But it wasn’t quite as simple as that.

They claim Liverpool went along with the narrative of Coutinho having an injury because they didn’t want anything to disrupt Liverpool’s start of the season.

The report reads: “Coutinho had been complaining of back pain and when a scan revealed nothing was wrong with him, it was decided then it was better to play along with the façade - publically at least - in an attempt to try and limit the attention around his behaviour and allow Liverpool’s season to begin with less disruption than there would have been otherwise.”

In truth, Liverpool could have hung Coutinho out to dry.

They could have told their fans that Coutinho was refusing to play for the club and feigning injury as he tried to force through a move, something that would have seen supporters turn on their star player.

Instead, they supported him and brought him back into the squad when the transfer window closed as they continued to rebuff any approaches from the Catalan club.

Ironically, as soon as the January transfer window opened, Coutinho was injured once again - this time with a thigh strain. This means he hasn’t played a single match when a transfer window has been open this season.

And it’s for that reason that Liverpool fans aren’t happy with the way Coutinho has forced through his dream move to the Camp Nou, leaving them needing to find a replacement in the middle of a crucial period of the campaign.