Why Liverpool Have Found Their New Talisman in Philippe Coutinho

Sunday’s 2-1 defeat to Manchester United shouldn’t diminish what Brendan Rodgers has achieved in salvaging Liverpool’s season. Of course, it will now be significantly more difficult for the Reds to finish in this season’s top four, but there was a time when the Anfield club looked like finishing just outside the bottom four.

Indeed, Liverpool’s recovery since the turn of the year has been remarkable. The Reds were as low as 12th in the Premier League standings in November, but they followed up that nadir by winning 12 from 17 league fixtures, losing just once, before Sunday’s clash against United.

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So how did Rodgers do it? Liverpool are now outsiders to clinch Champions League qualification this season following Sunday’s defeat, but their campaign won’t be the unprecedented disaster it once threatened to be. 

The Northern Irishman deserves credit for the way he has turned around Liverpool’s season, but from an on-the-pitch perspective, no one player has pushed Liverpool towards a top-four place like Philippe Coutinho has. The Brazilian is the spark from which the Reds’ season finally caught light.

Coutinho has taken on the talismanic mantel once held by Luis Suarez at Liverpool. The playmaker operates in a different area of the pitch to the Uruguayan, but nonetheless, he is the man bringing creativity and invention—not to mention goal threat—to Rodgers’ side. 

With Suarez in the team, Liverpool could afford to be fluid between the lines of midfield and attack, where the Uruguayan operated and thrived. But without the striker, their approach lacked structure. It was from here that Rodgers made the decision to recalibrate. 

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To arrest his side’s slide into the bottom half of the Premier League, Rodgers reverted to the very basics of his tactical mechanism. Liverpool were simply too fluid, without any semblance of structure, in the first few months of the season. Rodgers recognised the need for rigidity. 

A series of conservative 1-0 wins saw Liverpool through December as Rodgers and his side regrouped. But with a more solid basis from which to build on, Coutinho’s importance increased, as the former Swansea City and Reading boss reintroduced the sparkle that left the club with Suarez.

“It is frightening to know what he could be worth,” gushed Rodgers after Coutinho’s performance in Liverpool’s 2-1 win over Manchester City at the start of March, as per ESPN. “He is a kid who has so much ahead of him in the game. He is a sensational footballer.

“He is a player that has always assisted and made the final pass in his career. He is a very selfless player and a very humble young guy and would rather create for others. But his technique is at a high, high level so he is going to score more goals.”

And that is where the biggest improvement in Coutinho’s game can be found this season. While he often flattered to deceive in terms of goal threat upon his arrival in the Premier League, the Brazilian is now a hub of productive attacking activity.

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At first, Coutinho was something of an indulgence. It was a reputation that eased his exit from Inter Milan, with a series of coaches including Claudio Ranieri, Rafael Benitez, Leonardo and Andrea Stramaccioni all sceptical over the Brazilian’s true worth.

But in England, Coutinho has emerged as one of the finest young midfielders in European football. He is developing season-to-season and is now the face of Rodgers’ Liverpool side in a post-Suarez age. 

Rodgers’ switch to a 3-4-2-1 shape has given Coutinho a free role in behind Daniel Sturridge as the central striker. The 5'7” dynamo is now having more shots per game (2.5 shots per game compared to just 1.8 per game last season—as per WhoScored.com) and is averaging nearly three times as many key passes (from 0.5 per game up to 1.4). The question of who would pick up Suarez’s slack this season was asked, and it would seem Coutinho has obliged. 

Of course, Jordan Henderson has also been a factor in Liverpool’s resurgent form in the second half of the season, with the former Sunderland midfielder underlining his candidacy to take over as club captain when Steven Gerrard leaves for LA Galaxy at the end of the season.

The return of Sturridge, who was sidelined for the best part of four months through injury, has also played its part in Liverpool’s recovery, giving Rodgers the attacking focal point he desperately lacked between September and January.

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Yet it is Coutinho’s form that has been the biggest influence on Liverpool’s recent run of positive results, barring Sunday’s defeat to Man Utd. The Brazilian playmaker came close to sparking a second-half comeback against Louis van Gaal’s side, and he will be central if his side is to reboot their Champions League charge.

One should be wary of writing off Liverpool’s top-four challenge. Five points separate the Reds from United in the Premier League table, and considering their streak since the new year, it’s a gap that could still feasibly be bridged, especially given the Old Trafford club’s difficult fixture list between now and the end of the season.

Were Rodgers to guide Liverpool to a top-four finish after all that he has had to deal with this season, he would achieve something to outweigh even last year’s success. The Reds boss was handed an incoherent and slap-dash group of new signings to compensate for the sale of Suarez by the club’s infamous transfer committee, and yet he has somehow formed a team on the brink of the top four—with Coutinho at the centre of it all.

The deployment of Coutinho in a new formation hasn’t just changed Liverpool’s play, it has altered the spirit of the team. The lethargy that came to characterise the Reds’ dismal start to the campaign has been thrown off, and the excitement that rushed through Anfield last season has been restored. Much of that is down to the Brazilian.