Dejan Lovren has waxed lyrical about team-mate Coutinho, following the Brazilian’s special performance against West Ham at the weekend.
Our 24-year-old playmaker toyed with the Hammers from central midfield, cutting their defence open for Daniel Sturridge’s opener and scoring two superb goals of his own in the second-half.
There were times when Coutinho was picking up the ball next to our centre-backs, but he was still the most offensively dangerous player on the pitch: head and shoulders above both his opponents and team-mates.
SEE MORE:
Wijnaldum on how Liverpool can make final ‘biggest game of the season’ easy
For the majority of this campaign, he’s been stationed on the left in a 4-3-3 formation, but his ability in the middle gives us an entirely different option going forward – especially because it maximises his through-ball.
According to Dejan Lovren, Coutinho might be in holding midfield soon – but he’d still do absolutely fine!
“To be honest we didn’t expect that we’d win 4-0 and score so many goals, but I would say that even with this pressure we showed our quality today, that we can win against tough-defensively teams,” he told the official website.
“Our quality decided the game. Philippe was amazing today, he was the difference I would say.
“I said to him ‘soon you’ll be a defensive midfield player!’ and he was laughing. It says everything, he can play in every position, up front, in the middle, like a 10, he’s just brilliant.
“[It was] Definitely difficult for them because he took the ball deep and with his skills, his fast movements, it’s quite tough to stop him. You can just stop him with fouls!” the Croatian said.
There’s one game of the season left and we’ll need Coutinho at his brilliant best to break down a probably stubborn Middlesbrough side.
Hopefully, he can steal the show again.