Philippe Coutinho is heading to Barcelona this summer, journalist Julien Laurens claims.

The Liverpool star has been tipped to replace Neymar at the Nou Camp following his move to Paris St-Germain and Laurens is backing him to make the switch.

He said on ESPN FC: “Yeah I do. I think this one is far more advanced than the Dembele one.

“I think they’re flirting with Dembele if you want whereas with Coutinho they’ve already spoken to him, his agent, probably even to Liverpool at some point.

“They will make a huge offer if they haven’t already made a big offer, an offer that will be very hard to reject for Liverpool.

“You know I don’t know the Liverpool owners that well and I don’t know how strong they are if they want to keep Coutinho or not but it will very hard to turn down the offer Barcelona are going to put on the table.”

Chelsea are hopeful Southampton will open talks over a move for Virgil van Dijk.

The Dutch defender looked set to join Liverpool this summer but the Blues are now in the race to sign the 26-year-old.

Reports last night claimed the Blues are readying a £50m bid for the former Celtic man.

And the Evening Standard say Chelsea are hopeful of entering negotiations with Southampton for the defender.

They reckon they're in with a chance of landing Van Dijk, with Southampton furious at Liverpool.

Aston Villa are leading the race to sign Liverpool ace Ryan Kent, the Birmingham Mail claim.

The 20-year-old is yet to make a senior appearance for the Reds but the attacker did feature under Jurgen Klopp in pre-season.

And according to the Mail, Liverpool have decided to loan out the youngster this campaign and he's most likely to head to Villa Park to link up with Steve Bruce.

Leeds and Middlesbrough are also tracking Kent and are keen to land the youngster.