Klopp: My best player is trying too hard

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Jurgen Klopp has tried to explain Coutinho’s recent slump in form.

Our Brazilian playmaker has recently signed a mammoth new contract which makes him one of the Premier League’s top earners, but his form in January (like his team-mates to be fair…) was poor.

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He returned from a nasty injury against Manchester United and looked promising, but that was about as good as it got as he failed to register a goal or an assist against Swansea, Southampton, Wolves, Chelsea and Hull.

Klopp reckons that our most talented player is trying too hard to re-find his form that before December made him a Player of the Year contender.

“To finally judge this squad this season is only possible if you stay with Phil at the highest level because that is what Chelsea have,” Klopp told the Telegraph. “They are going through the season playing 13 or 14 players maximum. OK, they have 20 players, but they usually only use 13 or 14.

“He is the type of guy who takes everything into games. He takes all the responsibility in the world. It was the same thing with Sadio coming back from Africa. You saw the first half [at Hull] and you saw the second half and you think ‘OK, that is not how he usual is.’ You cannot know before.”

Coutinho has six goals so far this season, but after the first few months of the campaign, we hoped he’d be well into double figures by now.

In hindsight, his foot injury picked up versus Sunderland has affected ours and his season just as much as we originally feared.

Hopefully, the 24-year-old can get into a groove again, now we’ll only be playing one game per week.

At his best, as we all know, Coutinho is unplayable.

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