Malaga 0-2 Barcelona: 5 Talking Points

#3 Philippe Coutinho’s performance

Malaga v Barcelona - La Liga

It was a strange performance from the Brazilian. Of course, it’d be pretty easy to say that he scored a goal and passed the ball nicely to create a few openings for his team, but there are areas where he can yet improve.

Coutinho was dispossessed the maximum number of times in the game, five to be precise, and that’s one issue that Barcelona will look at in the bigger games. He won’t be playing in the Champions League, so there aren’t too many big games he’ll feature in, but playing him more often in the league could allow him to get used to the pace of the game.

The Brazilian prefers playing on the left and the biggest positive from last night was he often came deep to collect the ball and pass it to his teammates, something we saw regularly at Liverpool. He also had quite a few shots from his preferred angle, but didn’t manage to add to his tally of one goal.