Aston Villa offer cut-price fee for unwanted Barcelona player

Aston Villa have reportedly offered Barcelona just £12million to permanently buy attacking midfielder Philippe Coutinho, who has impressed on loan at Villa Park.

Coutinho joined the Villans in January until the end of the season, reuniting with manager Steven Gerrard whom he played with at Liverpool for two-and-a-half-years.

He started brightly for Villa and although his contributions have dried up in recent matches, the 29-year-old has still managed four goals and three assists in 15 Premier League appearances.

As part of his loan deal, Villa have the option to buy the Brazilian for £33m, but the MailOnline report that while the club have opened talks with Barcelona over a permanent transfer, their opening bid is just £12m.

And even though that is just a fraction of what was originally proposed, the Catalan club are said to be willing to accept the offer to ensure that Coutinho’s hefty salary, a reported £480,000-a-week, is off their wage bill.

Gerrard will be hoping to use that to their advantage in negotiations to secure a low fee, as well as the fact that Coutinho’s contract expires next year.

Across a five-year spell at Anfield, Coutinho established himself as one of the best playmakers in the world and earned a much-hyped move to Barcelona for £121m in January 2018.

However, inconsistent form and injury problems have resulted in the deal being a complete disaster for both the player and the Spanish side.

Even though they still manged to lift two La Liga titles together, Coutinho was unable to live up to expectations set by the man he was replacing, Neymar, while Barcelona continue to suffer from huge financial difficulties as a result of an over-paid and over-stuffed squad.

Coutinho was even loaned out to Bayern