Jurgen Klopp says he decided to sanction the sale of Philippe Coutinho because keeping him could have had a detrimental impact on Liverpool’s season.

The Reds boss insists he gave the green light for owners Fenway Sports Group to thrash out the £142million deal with Barcelona after failing to convince Coutinho to stay until the end of the season.

Liverpool had hoped that the club’s continued involvement in the Champions League - coupled with the fact that Coutinho is ineligible to play in the knockout stages for the Catalan outfit - would lead to him agreeing to put his dream move on hold until the summer.

However, Coutinho was adamant that he wasn’t prepared to wait and had no interest in the Reds’ offer of significantly improved personal terms.

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With the 25-year-old under contract until 2022, Liverpool could have stood firm like they did when Barca submitted three bids last summer, but Klopp didn’t see the value in keeping a player who wouldn’t have been committed to the cause.

“By the way, the final decision, if I would have said ‘no way’, the club would have said: ‘okay, let’s try’,” Klopp said.

“It was clear there was no chance. It’s not that there was an open question or something and in the end 50% pro, 50% contra and then I had to make the decision. In the end, it was quite easy.

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“It was not that we had a talk and Phil said my head is somewhere else, it was just clear after we spoke that it would not work out. We knew it when the club tried everything.

“We had a lot of talks about different things, how we can do this or that, but if somebody denies things like that then it is clear the decision is done. At some point you need to accept it and that is what we did.

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“I can imagine what people have said and written this week and I would think similar if we as a club had not tried everything.

“If the club said after the first call (from Barcelona) ‘good idea, we wanted to call you actually because we don’t want to have him’ then it would be different. But we tried everything. You have to accept it.”

Rather than viewing the sale as bowing to player power, Klopp insists he was looking after the club’s interests.

Despite Coutinho scoring 12 goals in the first half of the season, the manager didn’t believe he would be the “same player” if Liverpool blocked his path to the Camp Nou once again.

Asked if he feared that keeping him against his wishes would have had an impact on the rest of the team, he said: “That’s possible. If Phil Coutinho is in you always think about lining him up.

“On an average day, after an average training week, we still thought: ‘come on, he can do something special’. He didn’t always to be honest because he’s a human being.

“He developed. One of the best parts of his career at Liverpool since I’m in was the last half year - consistent, at a really high level.

“But it was not possible to do it again. You feel it, you know it, you hear it. You can read it out of reactions.

“You cannot use him if he’s not 100%. Philippe Coutinho is a world class player but if he’s not 100%, he’s not that international class, Premier League class, you lose the grip.

“If you get an injury, if something happens in a game - you miss a ball, stuff like that - you think ‘I would love to miss it in Barcelona instead of Liverpool’.

“Lose a challenge, miss a chance, stuff like that. You know players are different.”

Klopp dismissed suggestions that selling Coutinho in the January window represents a gamble with Liverpool fighting for a top-four finish in the Premier League and still challenging for the Champions League and the FA Cup.

Life without the Brazilian will start with Sunday’s clash against unbeaten Premier League leaders Manchester City at Anfield.

“My job is always a risk but I could not decide differently,” he added.

(Image: (Photo by David Ramos/Getty Images))

“If anybody would say afterwards it’s because he didn’t fight enough, they will never know 100% all the information. You can say it, write it, I don't care about it. If it’s a risk or not, it’s only in your judgement. You have to decide that. For me, there was no different decision possible.

“What a football player he is. He will be such a good player for Barcelona as well, but for us in a few games, like Tottenham away, we gave him the ball and he was not always in the best shape.

“It was kind of a solution for us to give him the ball. No, we don’t have to look for that. It can make us more unpredictable if we don’t.

“We don’t have to think about unpredictability immediately against Manchester City – we have to think about work – but in general there is always opportunity in a situation like this.

“You don’t have to think about it from the moment you realise there is no chance (of keeping him). That’s how life is and football is exactly the same.”