Philippe Coutinho has now recovered from his shoulder injury and is back in the squad for the trip to Arsenal on Saturday. The Brazilian’s absence has been key to Liverpool as the side has struggled filling in the number 10 position in the 3-5-2 formation coach Brendan Rodgers is using.
Victor Moses has been put in that position and failed. Only last week against West Brom was Jordan Henderson given a chance there and he did surprisingly well. But in the long term, that position is built for Coutinho as he has the skill, vision and creativity to link the midfield play with the strikers. This is not an easy role to occupy, as Moses will tell you, so expect to see a significant change for the better in Liverpool’s play when Coutinho is back in the side.
But Coutinho must not get too comfortable when he is fit and pulling strings in the Liverpool attack, there is another Liverpool player who could come in and knock him off his position and that is 19-year old Suso who is currently on loan at Spanish side Almeria.
Liverpool decided to send Suso out on loan so that he could get regular first team football and that move seems to be working very well. Although Almeria are at the foot of the Spanish table, Suso is getting game time which is what he needs to grow and he has already managed to chalk up one goal and four assists in 10 games.
Although Almeria play him on the right most of the time, you can see that all the attack and creativity in the side is coming from the Liverpool player. They say Coutinho is perfect for the number 10 role at Liverpool but so too is Suso. Just have a look at the video below to see how well he played against Valencia. It will be interesting to see what happens next season when Suso is back from his loan spell and is pushing for a spot in the Liverpool side against Coutinho.
Video courtesy of MostarLFC
