Thread by @barca_natics

[THREAD] I really didn’t want to do this, but the false narrative around Coutinho’s lack of success at Barcelona is really bugging me, so this is my attempt at debunking it.

This is one of the few things that went wrong that EV should not takd the bulk of the blame for.

I’ve seen many say that Coutinho is getting unfairly criticized compared to Dembele, which is:-
1) is untrue (Dembele has received a lot of criticism from fans and more criticism from the media).
2) Dembele and Coutinho’s situations are not the same anyway.

Let’s take a look at our forwards contributions in league play last season.

Right off the bat we see that Dembele was our second most efficient scorer, and was considerably more efficient than Coutinho who underperformed against his xG metric.

Secondly, we can see that Dembele also ranked second in xA per 90 minutes while Coutinho ranked last.

Yes, Coutinho, our record transfer, and the man brought in to add creativity to our play ranked last in xA per 90.

Moreover, Dembele attempted and completed more crosses into the box than any of our forwards last season, Coutinho again ranked last.

Dembele also attempted and completed more dribbles than Coutinho, (again ranking second behind Messi).

He also ranked 1st at progressing the ball forward.

According to @Wyscout a smart pass Something more than a simple pass. There has to be some idea in the pass, cutting the lines and winning some advantage for the team with this pass, leading them in good position to attack. The pass should be between 2-3 opposition players.

Again even in the aspects Coutinho was brought in for, Dembele was also more successful at playing ‘smart’ passes.

According to @SofaScoreINT Dembele also completed more key passes (1.6 to 1.0) per 90 mins.

In short, Dembele comfortably outperformed Coutinho in virtually every offensive aspect, therefore it is perfectly understandable that fans are more lenient on Dembele.

Furthermore Dembele was much more heavily criticized in the media which is why fans defended him.

Dembele is also 5 years Coutinho’s junior, and although expected to contribute from the jump, he was always much more of a long term project/prospect.

Bought at the age of 20, he required a manager capable of fostering his development both as a player and a professional.

Coutinho was bought as more of a finished product, someone who was already in his prime, did not need much development, and could contribute immediately.

He was none of those things for Barcelona, and that has little to do with EV.

He was given a plethora of opportunities to assert himself and adapt, but he didn’t take them. The same cannot be said about other players EV has failed to utilize such as Aleña, Malcom, and to a lesser extent Semedo & Dembele.

As for the “played out of position” theory. That is also blatantly false. He was played in roughly the same position he occupied for Liverpool as the heatmaps below indicate. The only time he played as more of an out and out 10 was in his first half of the 17/18 season.

To add insult to injury, he used his biggest moment as a Barça player to act like an entitled brat or a Club legend that was just going through a bad patch of form.

The fact is he was complete failure at Barcelona, and most of that is on Coutinho himself.

Anyone who follows me knows I am no fan of EV or this idiotic board, but pretending Coutinho’s failure wasn’t mostly his own doing is foolish.