Philippe Coutinho put in another poor performance as Aston Villa suffered their third defeat of the season and it may lead Steven Gerrard to drop the 30-year-old ahead of their next Premier League outing.
Calls to drop Coutinho aren’t unfounded but there was evidence that he’d tail off after a bright start based on how his spell at Barcelona went.
The Brazilian international joined Barca from Liverpool in 2018 and went on to make 106 appearances in all competitions, scoring 25 goals with 14 assists, but the last few seasons didn’t go as well as the first.
Coutinho scored seven goals with six assists from 18 La Liga games in his first season (2017/18) but scored only five goals with two assists from 34 league games the following campaign (2018/19).
He was then loaned out to Bayern in 2019/20 where he scored a respectable eight goals with six assists from 23 Bundesliga games, but Coutinho’s form fell apart back at Barca – two goals from 12 league games in 2020/21 and two goals from 12 league games in 2021/22.
After joining Villa midway through last season, scoring four goals with three assists from his first eight league outings, Coutinho has just one assist from the 15 games that followed.
He’s underwhelmed for nearly six months and has a contract worth £125k-per-week at Villa Park until 2026, so the Midlands outfit might have a problem if he doesn’t turn things around.
Coutinho had more bad seasons than good at Barca, so Steven Gerrard was taking a risk when he signed him permanently.
