Journalist Dean Jones has highlighted that if Aston Villa sign James Rodriguez instead of Philippe Coutinho then that would be bad news.
Philippe Coutinho joined Aston Villa on loan from Barcelona in January, and there is a clause in the deal that if Villa want to make the deal permanent then they can pay £33 million, but they may face fierce competition for him, due to him scoring four-goals and registering three assists in 14 Premier League games.
Do you think Coutinho will stay at Villa?Yes
No
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With the uncertainty of Coutinho’s future, James Rodriguez has been linked with a move to Villa Park, after he has spent some time in the Stars League with Al-Rayyan SC this campaign.
After there have been reports of a move to Aston Villa for the former Everton man, Jones highlighted to GiveMeSport that the Villa fans would be disappointed if they ended up with Rodriguez over Coutinho.
“I imagine Villa fans will be disappointed if they end up with James instead of Coutinho because one, they’ll be judging him on his reputation and what they’ve seen from him at Everton, particularly in the latter stages of his time at Everton, and they won’t be very optimistic about what’s to come.
“And two, they’ve also seen flashes of Coutinho’s brilliance and know that they might have something special there if they can build around him, so I think it would be a double blow really to not get Coutinho and then to end up with James,” Jones said.
TIF Thoughts on Dean Jones’s comments…
Philippe Coutinho has largely been superb since he came back to the Premier League in January, he has the second-highest average player rating per game at the club (7.15), he has the joint third amount of goal contributions (7), despite only being there since January and he has the most amount of key passes per game on average per game (1.7), as per Sofascore.
However, things have dipped off in recent times which is what has put a cloud over his future at Villa Park.
One thing that Steven Gerrard will need to be wary of is the attitude of James Rodriguez as he has proved to be a handful for managers in the past and often lacks effort when things aren’t going his way.