Steven Gerrard has lavished serious praise on Coutinho, his former Liverpool team-mate.
The pair played together for two a half years between early 2013 and mid-2015, when our ex-captain departed for LA Galaxy after 16 years in the first-team.
During their time on the pitch together, Liverpool came within inches of Premier League title glory in 2013/14, before Coutinho slowly turned into our ‘Main Man’ upon the legend’s departure.
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LFC coach’s blunt, worrying comments on Coutinho’s future
According to Gerrard, now our U18 coach, Coutinho was mind-boggling at training and the ex-skipper asked the South American to keep away from him – to avoid embarrassment!
“He’s impossible to defend against,” Gerrard told BT Sport, cited in the Star.
“When I used to train against him, I’d hate it when I was on the opposition five-a-side team.
“I wouldn’t go near him and sometimes I’d say to him keep away from me because he’ll embarrass you.
“If you stand him up he can go both ways. He’s got such a low centre of gravity.
“He’s so sharp, so quick and he’s two or three steps ahead of defenders.”
Coutinho played on the left-wing against Leicester at the weekend, but we have Sadio Mane back available to us now, so expect our no.10 to drop back into a more central role against Spartak Moscow tomorrow.
From here, he’ll hopefully be able to do serious damage – threading through-balls to the likes of Mane, Mo Salah and perhaps Daniel Sturridge – who was so excellent during his weekend cameo.