Daniel Feliciano

Tue 6 December 2022 12:31, UK

It was January 2022 when Aston Villa pulled off what looked like the coup of the decade by bringing in Philippe Coutinho on loan from Barcelona for Steven Gerrard.

It was a statement signing for the new manager, and it started off brilliantly as he returned to the Premier League with goals, assists and great creativity.

But it soon went downhill for the Brazilian playmaker, and Gerrard, and as we head into January 2023 it could be that neither of them are at the club anymore.

Gerrard was sacked just three games before the World Cup break, and replaced by serial winner Unai Emery in the dugout, with the Spaniard claiming back-to-back Premier League wins in those two games.

But as the team spend the World Cup break together looking to improve and take in the new manager’s ideas, one man is missing through injury and that’s Coutinho.

But while he’s not available for the camp just yet, it could be possible that he’s already pulled on the claret and blue shirt for the final time if Emery has his way.

This is a manager that has never had an issue with using a maverick, but they need to be the best option for him to do so. Look at Arnaut Danjuma at Villarreal, who became a key player despite the issues he brought to the side simultaneously.

However Emery is also not afraid to make tough decisions when needed, and Coutinho is exactly that right now – a tough decision.

With so many attacking options available to him, Coutinho has a really tough task of winning his place back in the team. He’s currently behind the likes of Emi Buendia, Leon Bailey, Ollie Watkins and Jacob Ramsey in the pecking order, and that shouldn’t change any time soon.

All of the aforementioned players deserve their place in the team ahead of him, and have got a far brighter future at the club considering their ages and performances during their time here.

The Coutinho signing was an experiment. It seemed, on paper, like an ideal situation to back Gerrard and replace Jack Grealish in one swoop, but the Gerrard experiment died a death and this Coutinho experiment should be extinguished with it.

He’s not the player he once was and with the wages he earns, we could do so much more with that money to improve the overall balance and quality of the squad.

Unless we get to see an entirely different Coutinho, there’s no way he should be at Villa Park come the start of next season and if an opportunity to let him go comes in January then it should be grabbed with both hands.

In other Aston Villa news, Matty Cash showed his worth to the club with performance against Kylian Mbappe