Brendan: Coutinho is this team's brain
- Thread starter Glen C
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I doubt Schneiderlin will play.
Anyone else notice that the shape yesterday seemed more of a 4-2-3-1? Looked like Hendo was playing on the right of the '3'. Not a bad thing, as it frees up Coutinho to play as a proper number 10, but I'd be a little concerned about our quality and depth in the '2' positions.
I think that's what Koeman will have taken from yesterday-- try and disrupt Coutinho's play. Now, in situations such as these, I'd expect the other players to move into the breach and that exploit that gap.
I can watch that pass again and again, all day long.
That first pass of the clip to Sterling had so many good things going for it.
Firstly, the decision-making was spot-on: making the easier pass to Sturridge would've killed the attack because the latter had gone into a position which would've been flagged for offside had he received the ball. The obvious pass out to the right (Manquillo I think) would've given the opponents the time to get back. So instead, Coutinho had the presence of mind to choose Sterling to receive his pass.
Which brings me to the vision behind that pass. If you look from the 6 to 8 second marks, you'll see that in that period, Sterling was generally about only a yard ahead and about 10 to 12 yards abreast from Coutinho. Yet the Brazilian had the incredible vision to anticipate where Sterling would be going, to pick him to receive the pass. And this was with him running full pelt, and with a yellow shirt or two possibly getting in the way of his line of sight.
Then the pass itself was a delight. There were two yellow shirts between him and Sterling, but he put that cheeky little curl on the ball that was just enough to elude both of them yet arrive nicely at Sterling's feet.
Making the difficult look so simple. That was a world class play in my opinion.
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