coutinho
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I'm loving the little nugget Coutinho. There's simply nothing the lad can't do. What a bargain. January was a great window for us.
Plaudits to Hendersen for a sublime finish for his goal. The lad is growing in leaps and bounds while starting to look every bit the U21 England captain.
Plaudits to Hendersen for a sublime finish for his goal. The lad is growing in leaps and bounds while starting to look every bit the U21 England captain.
ALONSO
XABI.
Kinda paints over the Allen and Borini deals from last summer.
Sturridge and Coutinho must add up to the best bit of business in one window for several years, but I'm still confident Allen will prove himself a great buy and even Borini - if he ever gets fit - could develop into the intelligent attacker he has the potential to be, so it's been pretty good this season as far as deals are concerned.
Cannot like this more
He really is looking a super purchase but very early days. Will be interesting to see how he copes with being roughed up when teams realise how good he is.
I remember Reyes being the dogs bollox at Arsenal until Neville kicked 7 shades of shit out of him in a game against Utd and he never recovered.
I remember Reyes being the dogs bollox at Arsenal until Neville kicked 7 shades of shit out of him in a game against Utd and he never recovered.
I'm kinda saying that we overpaid
CHABBY!
Liverpool's little man is up to speed
Philippe Coutinho’s lively link-up with Suarez gives Brendan Rodgers the chance to get Liverpool playing the way he wants
Jonathan Northcroft Published: 7 April 2013
The very notion of a 5ft 7in Brazilian towering at the back stick to nod home a cross is comical, even to the player himself. Nothing symbolises the change of style at Liverpool better than comparing Luis Suarez’s latest partner with the original one they envisaged at Anfield.
Coutinho and Suarez, in recent games, have been a quick-footed, fast-thinking combination that has unlocked foes. But when Suarez arrived, in January 2011, the idea was that defences would be smashed open by Andy Carroll and the Uruguayan would pounce on knock-downs.
The terms of his loan agreement prevent Carroll from playing for West Ham United at Anfield today but the stats suggest that’s of no great importance: in a season and a half for Liverpool, Carroll scored in just one Premier League game at the stadium and Brendan Rodgers, the Liverpool manager, wants to sell the player when his loan is over.
“We’re a team set up to exploit Luis’s qualities,” Rodgers explains. For him, that means surrounding Suarez not with giants who offer something different but accomplices whose football thinking is the same.
Coutinho, six matches into his Liverpool career, seems to have been playing with Suarez for six years. At Aston Villa last week, Coutinho had his best game since arriving for £8.5m from Inter Milan, lurking on the left, coming off the full-back to take possession then dropping inside to feed balls through to Suarez and other teammates.
“The manager communicates with me in Spanish and always asks me to help mark the opposition players and also come into the middle and try to open [teams],” Coutinho says.
Spanish is also what the Brazilian uses to collude with Suarez on the pitch. “I spent six months in Spain [on loan from Inter at Espanyol] so I can get by quite well in Spanish,” he says, talking via an interpreter in his mother tongue, Portuguese. “Suarez is a fantastic player and it is an honour for me to play with him. He is always on the move, he never stays still. And when you have the ball it’s much better for you to have a player like that, because you can open the defence much more easily.”
Suarez learnt his nutmegs and darts — and to compete relentlessly — in street games in Montevideo. Coutinho perfected his style playing futsal, indoor five-a-side, using a smaller, less bouncy ball, where there is a premium on speed over short distances and dribbling ability.
The sport is professional in parts of South America and especially popular in Brazil. The way top futsal players manipulate the ball is mesmeric and there is remarkable internet footage of Coutinho, as an adolescent, conjuring ludicrous moves in a game filmed in 2005.
“I played football from the age of six, futsal. Then when I was seven I went to Vasco da Gama, playing futsal until I was 11 or 12, and then I moved to the field. I think futsal is where I learnt my skills,” Coutinho says. “The space in which you play is much smaller and the pace higher, so you need to be a highly technical player to play futsal properly. It helped me a lot.”
Vasco da Gama, Rio de Janeiro’s third club, had slipped to Brazil’s second division for the first time in 110 years when Coutinho made his debut for them at 16. He helped get promotion, starred as Brazil won the South American Under-17 championship and an agreement to transfer to Inter became effective on his 18th birthday.
A full Brazil debut followed and he was described as “the future of Inter” but instability at the Milan club stalled him. At Espanyol, though, playing under Mauricio Pochettino — now in charge of Southampton — Coutinho scored five times in 16 appearances, and was revived.
Interest from Liverpool, first publicised in 2011, was also rekindled and Rodgers believes the fee paid for his “magical” No 10, who is not 21 until June, is one of the coups of the season. Where Rodgers wants improvement is in Coutinho’s ability to “break the line without the ball” — to read and run on to passes and not just deliver his own or rely on dribbling to get into the box.
He’s also looking for Coutinho to be even faster in his actions — with speed in attack becoming a Liverpool mantra. “There were a few occasions when I was quite slow and Steven Gerrard came up to me and asked me to be much quicker with the ball, and mark the opposition players more quickly too. Some other teammates ask me the same, they are always trying to help me get better,” Coutinho says.
The pace of English football is the biggest thing he has had to adapt to, apart from Arctic weather in April. “It’s completely different from Brazil, the wind here is really strong and cold. I tell my friends in Brazil and when they come over they cannot believe how cold it is,” he laughs. “But with time we’ll get used to it.”
The “we” refers to his wife and two brothers, Leandro and Cristiano, who moved with him to Merseyside. They are living in Fabio Aurelio’s old house with his pugs, Will and Mel. “My wife and I go out near where we live with the dogs, it’s like [having] two kids for us,” he says.
Socially, he is also close to Suarez and the rest of Liverpool’s South American contingent. “When we’re here in the training ground we’re always together, whether on the pitch or in the dressing room, and when we are out of here we go for meals together sometimes,” he says. A particular friend is “my big brother” Lucas, who persuaded him Liverpool was where he should come and achieve what’s now his aim — “to settle down” as a player.
There is one cloud. Coutinho, having already tasted the Champions League, is anxious to play in Europe next season. “It’s important because Liverpool must play in European competitions all the time and compete for trophies every year,” he says. “We’ll do all we can in the games we have left to achieve a Europa League place.” Liverpool would have to finish fifth, which looks tough — but little men who think big are exactly what Rodgers wants on the pitch.
Philippe Coutinho’s lively link-up with Suarez gives Brendan Rodgers the chance to get Liverpool playing the way he wants
Jonathan Northcroft Published: 7 April 2013
Playing catch-up: Coutinho has made an impact since joining Liverpool but says the pace of play has surprised him (PHIL NOBLE)
PHILIPPE COUTINHO has been playing organised football since the age of six but has he ever scored a header? “No!” Coutinho laughs. Is it an ambition? “Yes, yes,” he says, and there’s further mirth.The very notion of a 5ft 7in Brazilian towering at the back stick to nod home a cross is comical, even to the player himself. Nothing symbolises the change of style at Liverpool better than comparing Luis Suarez’s latest partner with the original one they envisaged at Anfield.
Coutinho and Suarez, in recent games, have been a quick-footed, fast-thinking combination that has unlocked foes. But when Suarez arrived, in January 2011, the idea was that defences would be smashed open by Andy Carroll and the Uruguayan would pounce on knock-downs.
The terms of his loan agreement prevent Carroll from playing for West Ham United at Anfield today but the stats suggest that’s of no great importance: in a season and a half for Liverpool, Carroll scored in just one Premier League game at the stadium and Brendan Rodgers, the Liverpool manager, wants to sell the player when his loan is over.
“We’re a team set up to exploit Luis’s qualities,” Rodgers explains. For him, that means surrounding Suarez not with giants who offer something different but accomplices whose football thinking is the same.
Coutinho, six matches into his Liverpool career, seems to have been playing with Suarez for six years. At Aston Villa last week, Coutinho had his best game since arriving for £8.5m from Inter Milan, lurking on the left, coming off the full-back to take possession then dropping inside to feed balls through to Suarez and other teammates.
“The manager communicates with me in Spanish and always asks me to help mark the opposition players and also come into the middle and try to open [teams],” Coutinho says.
Spanish is also what the Brazilian uses to collude with Suarez on the pitch. “I spent six months in Spain [on loan from Inter at Espanyol] so I can get by quite well in Spanish,” he says, talking via an interpreter in his mother tongue, Portuguese. “Suarez is a fantastic player and it is an honour for me to play with him. He is always on the move, he never stays still. And when you have the ball it’s much better for you to have a player like that, because you can open the defence much more easily.”
Suarez learnt his nutmegs and darts — and to compete relentlessly — in street games in Montevideo. Coutinho perfected his style playing futsal, indoor five-a-side, using a smaller, less bouncy ball, where there is a premium on speed over short distances and dribbling ability.
The sport is professional in parts of South America and especially popular in Brazil. The way top futsal players manipulate the ball is mesmeric and there is remarkable internet footage of Coutinho, as an adolescent, conjuring ludicrous moves in a game filmed in 2005.
“I played football from the age of six, futsal. Then when I was seven I went to Vasco da Gama, playing futsal until I was 11 or 12, and then I moved to the field. I think futsal is where I learnt my skills,” Coutinho says. “The space in which you play is much smaller and the pace higher, so you need to be a highly technical player to play futsal properly. It helped me a lot.”
A full Brazil debut followed and he was described as “the future of Inter” but instability at the Milan club stalled him. At Espanyol, though, playing under Mauricio Pochettino — now in charge of Southampton — Coutinho scored five times in 16 appearances, and was revived.
Interest from Liverpool, first publicised in 2011, was also rekindled and Rodgers believes the fee paid for his “magical” No 10, who is not 21 until June, is one of the coups of the season. Where Rodgers wants improvement is in Coutinho’s ability to “break the line without the ball” — to read and run on to passes and not just deliver his own or rely on dribbling to get into the box.
He’s also looking for Coutinho to be even faster in his actions — with speed in attack becoming a Liverpool mantra. “There were a few occasions when I was quite slow and Steven Gerrard came up to me and asked me to be much quicker with the ball, and mark the opposition players more quickly too. Some other teammates ask me the same, they are always trying to help me get better,” Coutinho says.
The pace of English football is the biggest thing he has had to adapt to, apart from Arctic weather in April. “It’s completely different from Brazil, the wind here is really strong and cold. I tell my friends in Brazil and when they come over they cannot believe how cold it is,” he laughs. “But with time we’ll get used to it.”
The “we” refers to his wife and two brothers, Leandro and Cristiano, who moved with him to Merseyside. They are living in Fabio Aurelio’s old house with his pugs, Will and Mel. “My wife and I go out near where we live with the dogs, it’s like [having] two kids for us,” he says.
Socially, he is also close to Suarez and the rest of Liverpool’s South American contingent. “When we’re here in the training ground we’re always together, whether on the pitch or in the dressing room, and when we are out of here we go for meals together sometimes,” he says. A particular friend is “my big brother” Lucas, who persuaded him Liverpool was where he should come and achieve what’s now his aim — “to settle down” as a player.
There is one cloud. Coutinho, having already tasted the Champions League, is anxious to play in Europe next season. “It’s important because Liverpool must play in European competitions all the time and compete for trophies every year,” he says. “We’ll do all we can in the games we have left to achieve a Europa League place.” Liverpool would have to finish fifth, which looks tough — but little men who think big are exactly what Rodgers wants on the pitch.
If bibs & rumours are to be believed, today could be your day
Haha, yeah but with my luck we'll probably be shit and the entire forum will come down on me.
I think that depends more on how many times you mention Downing in the match thread!
The fans' March Player of the Month:
Who in the hell took that photograph? It makes him look like a fucking hobbit. Why not just photograph him bent over getting fucked by Lucas while they're at it. Silly me for thinking it may be important not to make him look like an insect to the opposition defenders.
Yeah, fuck that guy what does he know?
Yeah, fuck that guy what does he know?
He is a hobbit. If his performances continue in the same vein he'll play like a mountain.
It will be of little comfort to Coutinho when his fingers get bitten off by David Moyes
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