Liverpool podcaster Chris Pajak has been sharing his thoughts and feelings on former Reds star Philippe Coutinho.
This comes after Pajak recently appeared on the latest episode of The Redmen TV Podcast where he spoke about a range of topics related to the Merseyside club.
On the subject of Coutinho, Pajak had this to say on the Brazilian: “I think, what he gave to the football club was more than what happened at the end and for five years, he was a bit of a model professional for us and so, he had credit in the bank there.
“I think, for me, he’s not a first-team Bayern Munich player and he’s not a first-team Liverpool player anymore because he doesn’t work hard enough on the pitch for what those two sides want to achieve.
“They’re the two best sides in world football Liverpool and Bayern Munich because they work harder than everybody and they’ve got the skilled players to back it up.
“I just realised that we’re better than him now. I think he thought a few years ago that he was better than us and he was wrong and we were right.”
Liverpool signed the 28-year-old back in the 2013 January transfer window from Inter Milan for a fee of £11.7 million.
After spending five years at the Merseyside club in which he managed to score 54 goals and provide 45 assists in 201 appearances, Coutinho made a mega-money move to Barcelona for a fee of £130.5 million (per Transfermarkt).
In August 2019, Coutinho joined Bayern Munich on a season-long loan deal and during the 2019/20 season, he made a total of 38 appearances for Bayern across all competitions in which he scored 11 goals and provided nine assists along the way.
During his time at Bayern, the Brazilian, who is currently valued at £50.4 million, helped the German side to win the Bundesliga title, the German Cup and the 2019/20 Champions League title (per Transfermarkt).
Would Philippe Coutinho get into this current Liverpool team?
Yes
No
TIF Thoughts…
Despite racking up a decent number of goals and assists for Bayern during his loan spell there, it appears that Pajak doesn’t believe that Coutinho is good enough to be a regular starter for the German club or Liverpool at the moment.
With Coutinho’s loan spell at Bayern ending at the end of this month, it will be interesting to see what his parent club Barcelona decide to do with him this summer, whether they will keep him in their squad, send him on loan again or just sell him.