The Philippe Coutinho saga finally came to an end in January when Barcelona acquired his services by paying Liverpool £142million.

The Reds offered a lot of resistance but finally decided to sell the Brazilian when the Catalan giants came up with a whopping offer.

And after selling Coutinho in January, Liverpool had the luxury of spending £100m immediately but they opted against shelling money on a replacement during the winter transfer window.

But Jurgen Klopp is expected to spend heavily in summer in order to add more quality to his squad ahead of the brand new Premier League season.

And Spanish news website El Gol Digital claim one of Liverpool’s targets could cause a serious problem for Barcelona.

It is believed both clubs are chasing Nice midfielder Jean-Michael Seri. Liverpool are attempting to bring Seri as Coutinho’s replacement while Barcelona wants the Ivorian to ease the heavy workload on Sergio Busquets.

The report adds the Reds are still looking for reinforcements for their midfield after losing Coutinho and are ready to pay 40 million euros to pull Seri from Nice in summer.

And the Merseysiders’ interest in the midfielder could make things difficult for Barcelona in their pursuit of the Ivory Coast international.

The Liverpool manager recently claimed that his team are an even better side since Coutinho departed for Barcelona in January.

“You saw our games when Phil came deep in centre mid,” Klopp was quoted by the Express.

“We didn’t want him to come deep all the time to be honest, it was more of a natural thing.

“You want him to be a 10, but with Phil we were giving him a four-yard pass and you don’t need that. Now we don’t have this dominant player – ‘Give it to me, give it to me, give it to me’ – that’s how it is.

“I don’t want to this to be misunderstood. It was really good, that’s why Phil is the player he is, but now we cannot do that anymore, it makes us a little bit more unpredictable.”

With Emre Can also likely to move out of Anfield at the end of the season, Liverpool’s interest in Seri makes sense.

The Ivorian is a solid midfielder with special passing and crossing abilities and exactly fits the bill to play under Klopp.