Things just haven’t gone Philippe Coutinho‘s way since he joined Barcelona from Liverpool in 2018. The Brazilian joined as the Catalans’ most expensive signing, so expectations were naturally high.
Now, though, Coutinho is being kept out of the Barcelona XI by teenagers. Seventeen-year-old Gavi and 18-year-old Yusuf Demir were both named by Ronald Koeman to start on Thursday away to Cadiz.
Koeman‘s latest selection shows just how far Coutinho‘s stock has fallen, and leaves him in an uncomfortable position of knowing that he is no more than a peripheral squad player for the Dutchman.
Doomed from the beginning
Coutinho‘s January arrival brought a lot of excitement to Barcelona, with the club still trying to move on after losing Neymar the previous summer. But things couldn’t have started much worse. A problem diagnosed in his medical ruled him out for three weeks, so his debut had to wait until the end of the month.
Barcelona vs Bayern Munich in the Champions LeagueMARCA
Although he did enjoy scoring against Real Madrid in a 2018 Clasico, he never got going at the Camp Nou.
By the summer of 2019, Barcelona were already looking for an end to his time in Catalonia, and he was loaned out to Bayern Munich. Painfully for Barcelona, Coutinho played and scored as the Bavarians hammered the Catalans 8-2 in the Champions League quarter-finals.
The final straw
Having returned to the Camp Nou since, Coutinho has still not been able to find any form, despite working under different coaches and in different systems in his three years at the club.
Now, with Gavi and Yusuf Demir both ahead of him in the pecking order, it’s hard to see how he would want to spend any longer at the club. When the window reopens in January, he’ll likely find himself being shopped around once again.
