Barcelona reportedly encouraged Philippe Coutinho to threaten to never play for Liverpool again in order to force through a move to Camp Nou.

Widespread reports have claimed that the Catalan giants have given up on trying to sign the Brazilian after three failed bids.

The European heavyweights were said to have given the Reds a 7pm deadline on Sunday to respond to their latest offer of around £113m.

Liverpool have publicly stated that Coutinho is not for sale, and it appears that they have stuck to their guns after previously rejecting bids of £72m and £80m.

It had emerged that the 25-year-old, who handed in a transfer request, told manager Jurgen Klopp that he would never play for the Merseyside outfit again, and now Brazilian publication Estadao has shone a light on the situation.

It claims that Barcelona 'manipulated' the playmaker into making the threat as a tactic to help move a deal along, but Coutinho's camp have insisted that he never had the desire to go on strike, and only did what he was told.

A back injury has kept Coutinho out of the Reds' first three games of the season so far.