One assist at the weekend, really ought to have been two if Coutinho buries the sitter he set up for him. Then the header at the end with the ball being two inches too high kind of somes up his day/season. Still chockablock full of quality though if you look beyond the obvious lack of confidence. I'm sure if it returns next season, wherever he ends up playing he will rip it up.
One other thing, there has been much debate on here all season about whether or not we "play to his strengths", how we do it (if indeed we aren't already) and what they actually are anyway. The first goal was a classic example of how you do it. Simple tap free kick, Benteke peels and Coutino hits him ON THE DIAGONAL and QUICKLY. Pretty simple stuff really, second phase runner picks up the knockdown and scores. Doesn't mean you have wingers flying up and down the line firing crosses in (Villa never had that either) nor does it mean you have to go "long ball and launch it". Just means that if you want to use him properly, you play the ball Coutinho played a few times during the match. The thing with such a ploy which gives it beauty is it directly threatens teams which sit in deep trying to prevent you passing through them. Against Benteke used in this way you really want to be defending as high up as possible, but of course you can't with our other players. It's very difficult to consistently stop such a ploy done properly, even more so when you're defending deep.
More than one way to win football matches and all that. Once we've flogged off Benteke hopefully we have an alternative plan against defend deep and hit it long teams next season. We'll need one if we are going to challenge for the title IMHO, and the team/manager is plenty good enough to aim for that if Sturridge stays fit.
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