While Daniel Sturridge has provided Liverpool with some awful hamstring news, Coutinho’s thankfully not confounded it – and is returning from his own hamstring problem, confirms Andy Hunter of the Guardian.
The Brazilian tweaked the muscle during our 4-1 battering of Manchester City, which annoyingly came at a time just as Coutinho was finding some career best form. Under Jurgen Klopp, he’d registered four goals in the three previous matches, racking up an assist and two Man of the Match awards as well.
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The 23-year-old, our best and most creative attacker, has five Premier League goals in total this term, but has missed our past four matches against Bordeaux, Swansea, Southampton and Newcastle. We got away with his absence in the first three of course, but looked totally lacking at St. James’s Park, which has undoubtedly quelled the gathering title talk.
It’s pivotal that Coutinho does return and finds his feet quickly, especially now that we cannot rely on Sturridge until 2016. (Although in truth, we can probably never ‘rely’ on him for a prolonged run of fixtures again.)
Jurgen Klopp may choose to give him some minutes at FC Sion on Thursday, before starting him at home to West Brom at the weekend.