Barcelona hypocritical in latest admission about Tottenham player

Barcelona officials recently said, via a Telegraph report, they couldn’t believe Tottenham were willing to pay £26 million for Emerson Royal, an absurdly hypocritical remark.

Coming from a club that spent £145 million on Coutinho, a historically and infamously failed transfer, is laughable.

Coutinho cost more than a small private jet and amounted to absolutely nothing. He scored 25 goals in 106 Barcelona appearances. That equates to £5.8 million per goal. Not to mention the fact that Barcelona was forced to fork out an extortionate £370,000 per week on the Brazilian’s salary.

While Royal has endured some discernible teething problems since moving to England and joining Spurs, he’s full of potential and is just 23 years old. He still has time to adapt and fine tune the weakest part of his game, his final product. 

Barcelona no longer has that luxury with Coutinho, who is now plying his trade with Aston Villa.

Coutinho joined Barcelona in 2018 and is still one of world’s most expensive signings. It shattered previous records and paved the path for Liverpool’s current success. The windfall of cash Barcelona paid for Coutinho, who turned out to be an abject failure in Spain, arguably facilitated Liverpool’s rise to prominence, allowing them to leapfrog the Catalan side, if only temporarily.

Liverpool, a year after Coutinho was sold to Barcelona, defeated the Catalan side 4-3 on aggregate in one of the most improbable Champions League semifinal comebacks of all time. While that result wasn’t directly due to the transfer, it had an indirect impact on the outcome.

So whomever in Barcelona’s ranks felt the need to deride Tottenham for buying Royal should reflect long and hard before making such hypocritical remarks.

Let’s hope Royal ascends to glorious heights at Spurs as an emphatic up yours to the responsible parties at the Catalan club.