The Coutinho Conundrum: Can the Brazilian turn his season around?
Much has been said about Philippe Coutinho's situation in Barcelona. Many fans have questions as to why Coutinho is not performing as expected this season. Let's try to shine some light on the matter.
Coutinho's best position is actually playing a free role (traditional #10) behind the striker as attacking midfielder or on the left. He can make diagonal runs from the left to shoot or create chances through his skills and dribbling. Coutinho can't play his natural best position as it would lead to overlap of the space occupied by him (shown in the pic below) with that of Messi.
Many Cules have been asking questions like why is Coutinho not performing this season? Why Valverde is not trusting him in the midfield three?
Last season Coutinho performed well (even though the problem of tactical discipline was there) because he didn't face much competition from Dembele and also he played on the left flank whenever Barcelona employed the 4-4-2 and 4-2-3-1 formations. But this season things changed, a lot of them.
Coutinho does not have the tactical discipline required to be slotted on the left in a three-man centre midfield for Barca. So the coach would be inclined to put him in the front three given his attacking instincts. But the problem comes when an inform Dembele comes into the equation.
Dembele would be the obvious choice to play alongside Messi and Suarez in the front three. If one thinks taking out Suarez and playing a front three with Messi in the centre is the ideal solution, don't bother.
That situation is not ideal. Not only will it hurt the tactical system but it makes it less easy for Messi also as he likes to receive the ball on the wings and then move into the centre or diagonally forward and having a number 9 like Suarez occupying the defender helps a lot. Another solution would be moving back to the 4-4-2 diamond, but that would involve keeping performing players out of the team.
Another problem is mentality.
Last year Coutinho did well playing simple football and by creating good chances. This season as the squa changed, the system reverted to a three-man midfield and either of Arthur Melo or Arturo Vidal take the midfield spot and now he faces competition from an inform Ousmane Dembele.
The Frenchman has improved leaps and bounds and looks more mature in his decision making and work rate. Coutinho understood things got tough for him and now he is trying to do more than just stringing good passes together. Now due to the pressure of competition, his mindset has changed and he takes one touch too many and ends up losing the ball.
Coutinho's decision making is now such that he tries to be a protagonist more often which has hurt his team's chances. The Brazilian's defensive work rate also isn't one to rave about.
So is there a solution?
There are two ways about it, either Barcelona change the system to suit Coutinho or Coutinho changes his playing style to suit the system.
It's not easy, I must admit. It depends a lot on Coutinho himself as he has to improve upon his tactical discipline. He could also learn a thing or two from the way his Brazilian counterpart fights for the ball. He has to go back to keeping things simple and regain confidence.
Maybe Barcelona could adopt a 4-2-3-1 with Messi as the No.10, Suarez upfront, Dembele on the right flank and Coutinho on the left. But this would mean the players would have to improve a lot on the defensive work rate especially the wingers and the midfield would have to cover a lot of ground. At present, this is not a good solution. It would work against weaker teams, though.
Being optimistic, one can only believe in Coutinho and hope he can turn it around for him and the team.