I am a bit surprised that he has never adapted to play the modern number 8 role, I thought that is what he seemed destined for since he arrived under Rodgers. I wonder if he has surrounded himself with people who feed his idea that the team should adapt to him rather than the other way around, because it doesn’t take a football genius to have realised a long time ago that he would not be able to play ‘his game’ at the the top level in the modern era. If he is not willing to adapt (and he clearly isn’t), he should have dropped a level a long time ago and been the star/luxury player in a mid table cub. Shame, it’s a waste of a very talented footballer.
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Thanks for the nostalgia! History gets written by the winners. He was fantastic for us and when he was leaving was one of the emerging talents that looked like they’d be a “best in the world in their position” contender one day soon. Barca paid too much out of desperation but not by as much as now made out with the benefit of hindsight. Main problems there being how they used him and lack of patience so he hasn’t recaptured top form. The fact that we have the best manager in the world allowed us to evolve our attack so it remained world class without him. We leaned extremely heavily on the indestructible fitness of Salah, Mane and Firmino for a while going without a strong fourth choice for the front 3 till Jota arrived several years later. If those 3 weren’t so lucky with the timings and lengths of the injuries they did sustain History books would have been written with lots of entries of how we missed Coutinho instead. We got lucky and Barca acted stupid. That’s what made the transfer seem so stupid, if things had gone different it could have looked like we were the stupid ones.
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I don’t think we got lucky at all, we sold him for a massive fee and replaced him with two better players in Alisson and Van Dijk.
There was no way of fitting Coutinho + our front 3 and being as good as we turned out to be. Coutinho is not, and has never been, a top number 8. No matter how many times people want to claim he is, he’s not. Nor was he good at breaking down a parked bus but that didn’t stop certain people moaning about his departure every time we got a draw with a mid table side.
He was at his best coming from the left but with Firmino as the #9 we were better balanced with Mane out there instead offering movement in behind rather than always coming short like Coutinho would.
Selling Coutinho not only funded our future success but it also took away a headache for Klopp of having to fit in a player that didn’t quite mesh with the direction we were headed.
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Yeah agreed. He was good in the role when we had runners in Sterling, Sturridge and Suarez and played to his strengths of playing those runners in as quickly as we can.
Football can be so esoteric. We have this idea that good players are good and therefore will be good when they move or circumstances change. But that just isn’t the case. There difference between the best performing players and the rest is not always just about talent (or even talent plus application), but often totality of fit in their present situation.
I understand the desire to try new things, hell even to be more handsomely paid, but players who find themselves in a situation in which things are going well for them should think very carefully about tearing that up and trying to replicate it somewhere else.
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We now have Mane, Jota, Salah who are not bad runners at all. I believe he could feed some good balls to them or at least draw some defenders off them
Thing is he doesn’t do that anymore. When he first came it was a strength of his game and he played absolutely sublime through balls. He then became a step inside and blam merchant. That’s not to say he didn’t play well under Klopp, he was brilliant at times, but he did have Mane and Salah in his team and using them as runners didn’t materialise.
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His best form IMO was the first few months he was here.
Maybe it was because he was just the new kid but he moved the ball on as soon as he saw the pass. The more confident he got, the more options he had, the longer it’d take him to make that pass.
Of course he was also brilliant at times in those final few months but I do think it’s a shame he changed his game after he cut his curly locks off.
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Has he recovered from his back trouble, yet?
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Doubt it, all that sitting down on the bench can’t be great for that back.
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Also to add, there was much more expected from the midfielders in dictating the play, slowing it down and covering the full backs not all of which was his forte. And the different aspect he brought of shooting from distance I believe we have that in the likes of Ox, Thiago, Keita and to an extend Hendo and Fabinho as well. Just we do not prefer to take that route that frequently as Coutinho used to.
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Its a strange one, Suarez and Coutinho both left us for Barcelona yet as fans we seem to hold more affection for Suarez and scrutinise Coutinho.
I actually have no issue with either player leaving, I support the club not a player. My only concern is that the Club utilities the funds to improve the Team/Squad and the evidence is there for all to see.
I actually believe Coutinho could be a great signing on a low fee, playing off the left and maybe later playing a more deep lying play maker role.
Either way, I really don’t see the hate that some people have for him.
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That ship has sailed, but I agree, a lot of people forget how great he was for us.
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I don’t think people hate Coutinho at all. Yes, they’re annoyed because of the way he engineered the move to Barcelona, he did fake a back injury and practically went on strike. I was bloody annoyed at the time, but I don’t hate him. I remember all the great moments he gave us.
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I have never felt so happy to see a player’s career go down the drain than Coutinho’s.
He thinks he makeths the club but it’s really this club that makeths the player. Enjoy languishing somewhere, in the meantime collect your high wages as much as you can.
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Yep. He should ideally be looking at a big pay day at china / qatar etc. No other club will be wanting to pay his salary demands compared to what he’s getting at Barca.
He did okay at bayern without being spectacular and I’d daresay the reason he failed at barcelona was that he was still a work in progress and not the finished article and he probably still needed a competent coaching staff around him which Barca didn’t and probably still don’t even now.
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He only impressed me in his 1st season here. I was happy for him to go particularly for the fee we got. Just didn’t offer anything except 20 long shots per match and a goal here and there. It was great the hype he got which helped to get that crazy fee.
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I’m not sure that the back injury was fake - particularly not in January as I recall it was something like a month after the transfer before he was healthy enough to play. That being said there were some “coincidencies” between transfer window dates and his availability to play that have led many to believe that and have hurt his standing with the fans. I prefer to remember how really, really well he played between the transfer windows that fall.
I’ve also wondered if some of those recurring back injuries aren’t a bigger part of his decline as a player since. I guess I still have a soft spot for him as he was a player I enjoyed watching.
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Did he not magically recover from his back injury to play in a game for Brazil only for the injury to reappear when back at the club… or am I misremembering?
It pissed me off more when his family had a go at Jurgen, that is unforgivable as far as coming back to the club. He is welcome here to get thumped as an apposing player.
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