THERE we go then on the Newstalk website. Philippe Coutinho. Too lightweight and like a schoolboy. It’s immediately tiring, but it does need to be said that the diminutive Brazilian isn’t above criticism and that he was both poor and a dope — a big, big, lightweight, schoolboy dope — at the weekend. It’s a harsh red but being on a yellow while being refereed by Kevin “Ain’t No” Friend should suggest staying on your feet and not making it easy for him. There can be a discussion around what Coutinho should or shouldn’t be for Liverpool.
In general, there is a problem Coutinho being Liverpool’s official best player. There is a problem with Coutinho playing high up the pitch, especially at home. Both of these problems are exacerbated when Liverpool either aren’t playing well or are losing; one of these things tends to lead to the other obviously.
Neither of these things are entirely fair on Coutinho — he plays where the manager puts him and whether or not he has enough good players on the pitch around him is something he can’t control. He appears to want this responsibility, when he’s played well, at times very well indeed, this calendar year it is because he’s wanted to be at the fulcrum of everything Liverpool do.
It’s by virtue of the fact he has at times played very, very well this onus is thrust upon him. However, this often leads to him looking to do too much on his own and becoming increasingly selective about who he is passing to. He also deserts his position when meant to be high and it isn’t going well, coming ever deeper to get involved and then looking to supply an attack which is a man down. Which is why that being a problem is at least slightly his fault.
It’s noticeable that many of Coutinho’s better games this year have come away from Anfield when he’s had that bit more space, certainly when playing in any front three and when Liverpool have been more patient in general — when the space to produce one moment of magic is perhaps a little easier to come by.
Coutinho is at his best as a footballer facilitating others, making them better players, making them the best player. The tone of the criticism he gets both here and at times in general is that he should have more nine out of 10 games. In reality, he needs to have more sevens and eights leaving other lads taking the plaudits for nines they don’t quite deserve.
He can’t be too deep, really. He’s combative enough and the lightweight thing is really rather unfair. He has the quick feet, boldness and ability to turn away from players to move into green space rather than pick the ball up between the lines. I prefer him on the ball to David Silva, but Silva’s a far, far better player at finding space and a starting position in a crowded final third.
Silva is constant clever movement and availability. He’s more disciplined. He lets the game come to him, knowing he can influence it high up the pitch. He’s more patient. He has more faith in his teammates.
In general, there is an issue when your best player isn’t a goalscorer. Manchester United 2012-13 their best player is Robin van Persie. Michael Carrick cruelly overlooked. Liverpool 13-14 it’s Luis Suarez (with Daniel Sturridge second). Manchester City’s best player is Sergio Aguero. Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi. Chelsea last season had Eden Hazard or Diego Costa in that category with Cesc Fabregas’s influence waxing and mostly waning as the season wore on.
These lads aren’t just the best players, they are focal points. What they do well defines the side they play for as an attacking force.
There is a correlation between Coutinho becoming Liverpool’s best player and Liverpool’s goals scored column flatlining. Correlation isn’t causation. The causation isn’t a criticism of Coutinho. It is that Liverpool haven’t had one number nine worth a carrot, let alone two and Coutinho exists to serve those footballers, not have to make up for their shortcomings.
There have been positive signs until West Ham and they can be extrapolated beyond: Coutinho’s link up play with Christian Benteke has been very encouraging, he should have a good relationship with Roberto Firmino, Sturridge is to return and these four games for Liverpool were always their own thing.
There’s a quiet irony that Coutinho may well be the opposite of Gerrard — a central midfielder, a number eight, who wears and looks like a 10, whereas Steven for much of his career looked like and wore eight.
Indulge a bit of Bill Shankly: “A football team is like a piano. You need eight men to carry it and three who can play the damn thing.”
A lot of what can make Liverpool a better side this year could well be a realisation that while he looks like a concert pianist, Coutinho might actually be the best piano mover we have.
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Finally. I’ve been making this argument for over a year. He has all the attributes to play as the deepest lying midfielder; he could and should be our Andrea Pirlo who made exactly the same transition in his early twenties.
Coutinho is at his best with space and players in front of him. Count all your favourite Coutinho passes: almost all of them come from around the half way line to players making runs from deep (Sturridge, Sterling or Henderson). He has the mobility for the deep lying position, he just needs to learn to read the game. If we’re to persist with the foolish 4-3-3 formation, why not try Coutinho behind Milner and Henderson?
Aren’t we being a wee bit harsh on the lad? Granted, he didn’t have a stormer against West Ham, but part of the struggles of the season so far has to do with the lack of movement ahead of him. Benteke has given him an outlet, but that’s it. Ibe’s been poor, Firmino hasn’t kicked in and we are ponderous with the Milner-Henderson-Can-Lucas axis. Plus all these comparisons with finished articles such as Silva, Iniesta has to stop. If we should do any comparisons, we should be looking at Ross Barkeley, Isco, Gotze, Ox-Chamberlain, Adrien Rabiot and Tiago Alcantra.
Coutinho as the deepest-lying, most withdrawn midfielder, even if it’s in a primarily play-making role is a luxury deployment of him that we cannot regularly afford.
The above is true in my opinion even discounting the near-fantasy talk of him being tough and not light-weight and terribly easy to knock off. If you really find yourself leaning toward this latter view, I implore you to reconsider. It’s not even remotely close to being a true description. He’s improved his defensive work, he presses very well and, much more commonly than was the case, uses his incredibly good, nimble feet to actually take the ball away from opponents when he (usually with one other) really closes him/them down. But he’s not tough and tenacious. We can call the most-withdrawn central midfielder by any term we like, but, in England especially, he will have to win some defensive headers, he’ll have to put in a good, timely tackle, etc. Let’s not kid ourselves. At least Gerrard had the physique (if not always the motivation or, lamentably near the end, the legs) to switch to “DM-mode” when necessary. While Coutinho would be a better DLPM than pretty much everyone else we have, at present, he’d be significantly worse as a ‘part-time’ DM (which the deepest lying central midfielder HAS to be able to be) than Allen. And Allen actually has the technique and training required to play DM (he just loses out based on sheer physics, at times).
So, no, Coutinho as the 1 of a 1-2 or 1-2-1, is not a good idea. By all means, he could play as Modric plays for RM. As part of a 2 in a 4231 with a capable and disciplined partner in the 2 and at least 2 of the 3 ‘ahead of them’ being disciplined, committed to their defensive tasks footballers.
You take away his goal threat playing him that deep though. He should be played furthest advanced of the midfield 3 so he has 3 ahead of him to pick out and can also contribute himself. He should be capable of getting 10+ with his ability to beat a man and find space as easily as he often does.
For me, his best two performances for the team were against arsenal and Everton at home in the 13/14 season where he was played in a midfield three.
A combination of creativity and gnarliness (far from lightweight), with the game and three quick intelligent forwards running ahead of him.
With the absence of those three quick intelligent forwards and no one else stepping up to the plate, hehas taken on far more than fair share of responsibility. He is good enough to take up the slack that others are creating, but can’t (and can’t be expected to) carry the whole team.
He needs to move back to the point of a three and orchestrate games from there.
Anyone who thinks he’s underwhelming hasn’t seen him play…or is perhaps just a media whore looking for hits?
The main problem with Courtinho is he doesn’t want to do what we all want him to do as our most skillful player. Does he have the intelligence or ability to do what we all expect him to do?
When he gets the ball he wants to beat a man then shoot or look for first time flick on or through ball and take up space in a shooting position. These are the attributes of a forward. As our most skilful player, we want him deeper, we want him to dictate play and take a second to orchestrate something. This isn’t his natural game. This what Brazil thought he did at Liverpool. It isn’t. It never has been. He reminds me of Peter Beardsley. I wouldn’t have wanted him deeper. Handsome though, like.
He’s stuck in between being a forward and a midfielder. Although he is our most skilful player, he doesn’t score enough to justify a more advanced position which wastes his flair in an attack. But he doesn’t poccess the discipline or even ability to roam midfield with his head up and be that much needed play-maker that 5/6 players will probably be given the chance at throughout this season.
I have no answer. I’d play him off Benteke. Like Gerrard to Torres. But there needs to be more creativity and movement behind. Not just who can cover most ground in 90.
The Beardsley comparison is good, he reminds me of him too, but Beardsley was quicker and a better finisher. He did much of his best work from deep too.
Too easily snuffed out playing at no.10
Either play him wide left and let him run at people and cut inside, or deeper in midfield
one of the best things that ever happened in the 2013/2014 season was little Phil in a central midfield position alongside hendo. enough said. do it again.
Coutinho relies on instinct. Comparing him to Silva isn’t really fair on him. Silva is the best in the league at creating his own space and connecting forwards with midfield. Silva can take 5/6 touches, keep the ball and stay composed and force an opening. This is a skill that Silva is boss at and plies his trade doing. Intelligence and composure.
Courtinho relies on instinct. As did Saurez. It isn’t a bad thing. But Courtinho isn’t Silva. I think we want him to be able to fill that role as our best player.
He’s still been our only good player this season, everything is having to go through him because no one else looks capable of creating anything at the moment. It’s been obvious for over a season ow that his position should be centre mid but Brendan would prefer runners in there over playmakers. Can and Milner passed to ball to each other three times against WH for instance.
Coutinho might start finding space like David Silva the older he gets. I think right now he just likes picking the ball up and driving at people. Basically, I reckon he just gets bored. Also, he hasn’t got an Alonso to his Gerrard who he knows is gonna find him 9 times out of 10 which is probably the biggest factor.
Saturday’s result makes all the sense in the world all of a sudden if our best player is ‘like a schoolboy’. Thought old fellas lazily going on with themselves about how little foreign players are ‘too lightweight’ would have died off by now.
He did have last season: Sakho. That fizzed ball on the half turn is what he thrives on when played in advanced positions.
Good shout. Yeah, I’d forgotten about him. So’s Brendan, to be fair.
If we stick with a 4-3-3 we can’t keep Coutinho in the front 3. He needs to be behind them feeding them and off them.
To play in a front 3 you need to be hitting 10/15 goals minimum a season and that’s just not Coutinhos strength. Plus as he’s naturally an attacking midfielder he tends to drop back to get on the ball. We need players in the front 3 that want to do most of their work in and around the box. Coutinho should be one of the 3 midfielders with the front 3 consisting of 3 from Benteke, Sturridge, Firmino, Ings, Origi possibly Markovic and Ibe.
Remember the game against city in 2013/14 when coutinho, Allen ,Lucas and sterling played supporting suarez.we played the best football. I’d prefer them lot to overrated Henderson and milner. You need work horse midfielders when you are playing against Barcelona or Bayern to press them of the ball in midfield. But when you are playing against teams like westham who like to sit back and defend,you need intelligent midfields who can keep the ball under pressure and actually combine with each other and make something happen.we don’t have that.we have a static midfield.
Wasn’t that team (at City)
Coutinho-Suarez-Sterling
in a front three and
Henderson – Allen
Lucas
behind?
in the middle.
one of my biggest gripes with coutinho is how little he looks to get the team involved this year. He hits that amazing shot against stoke and then takes 8 shots against bournemouth? he comes back against arsenal and hits the woodwork and you just knew he was going to be a wasteful pile of shit against west ham. His scoring is the worst possible thing for this team because as has been said he assumes all the responsibility when he simply doesn’t need to. west ham, he fires into 4 guys with benteke off to his right all alone.
I do think phil is overrated by a pretty significant amount, but he’s still a really good player he just needs to stop thinking he has to do everything himself and let the team do some of the heavy lifting for him. I think this suspension might actually be a good thing for him to sit down watch and just relax.
First you cant compare silva with coutinho simply because they play for different teams. Watch a manchester city game and see how many options silva has and how much space he has as well, because he is not the only player capable of create something. In liverpool is the opposite, coutino is the main man, is always marked, has no options ahead of him, and wasnt playing bad against west ham like people are talking here. Its easy to say everybody is overrated when they are not playing what we expect from them, but its plain ridicule to do this when its obvious that the whole team is crap and hasnt show a good football since last season.
I’ve never quite understood why Liverpool can’t make 4231 work. But if we try it again playing Coutinho as one of the 2 would probably be his best position; the same position where Cazorla has thrived for Arsenal in recent years. However Cazorla now has the benefit of a dedicated DM in Coquelin. Not buying a more mobile version of Lucas was a mistake, I think.
I’d happily see Hendo or Milner play no 10 too because they’re our best pressers and are keener to get into the box than Coutinho. Hendo’s creativity came on leaps and bounds last year but Milner arguably looked more dangerous in front of goal than Hendo in preseason when they were both the attacking midfielders in a single pivot 433 (I sound like such a wanker, I know, and I won’t blame anyone for citing it).
We’ve got a strong squad this year but it’s so hard to see the balance and how we’ll get the best out of our best players.
One of the reasons we are much better away from home is that Coutinho thrives in the transition where he has the space to pick the ball up, pull a midfielder’s pants down and then look to thread a ball or take a shot from distance. At home against a low block he hasn’t played half as well.
I have been saying this ever since Lallana arrived, but the type of game on the weekend is exactly what he was brought to the team for. He may lack the pace to play a more expansive game, but he is definitely the closest thing we have to a David Silva in our team not Coutinho.
Aye,but not close enough. You’re right about Coutinho. 2013/14 was all about transitions, the good and the bad. We don’t have the players to thrive in a possession based team.