Chris Sutton feels Steven Gerrard must decide whether or not to remove Philippe Coutinho from his starting XI for Emiliano Buendia when Aston Villa visit Crystal Palace this Saturday.
Gerrard told to consider axing Coutinho from Aston Villa XI at Crystal Palace
Chris Sutton has claimed in his BBC Sport column that Steven Gerrard will have to decide if he wants to stick with Philippe Coutinho over Emiliano Buendia in the Aston Villa line-up, ahead of visiting Crystal Palace for game three of the Premier League season this Saturday.
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The former Chelsea and Celtic centre-forward feels Coutinho has underperformed through the Villa Park natives’ opening two top-flight matches. Gerrard kept faith in the Brazilian to start against Bournemouth and Everton, having paid Barcelona £17m to sign him this May.
Coutinho sealed a permanent switch on a four-year contract, after spending the latter half of last term on loan with the Birmingham club. He started sprightly in claret-and-blue, too, with four goals and three assists in his first eight games, but has only added just one goal since.
The 30-year-old struck his latest Villans effort on the final day of last season, to end his 10-game drought. While Coutinho last laid on an assist during Aston Villa’s 4-0 win at home to Southampton in March. He has also only created one goalscoring chance so far this term.
In contrast, no Aston Villa player has created more chances so far this season than Buendia with four, per WhoScored. Yet the Argentine has played just 76 minutes to Coutinho’s 141. Gerrard is also yet to start the 25-year-old, with each of Buendia’s outings from the bench.
Buendia making strong case to start at Selhurst Park so far this season
Gerrard’s call to bring Buendia on for Coutinho on the hour mark whilst Aston Villa hosted Everton last Saturday proved beneficial, too. The £33m arrival from Norwich City last June worked with Ollie Watkins to complete a quick counter-attack, briefly putting Villa 2-0 up.
Buendia broke after Amadou Onana turned possession over in the centre circle, and struck after his one-two with Watkins. The playmaker rode Tom Davies’ challenge to drive up to the edge of the box with the ball, and continued his run after feeding Watkins to net a tap-in.
Now, Sutton feels Coutinho is no sure thing to start at Crystal Palace on Saturday, as Aston Villa could get more out of Gerrard starting Buendia over the underperforming Brazil star.
“He has to decide whether to pick Emiliano Buendia in midfield over Philippe Coutinho, who did not do much in the first two games,” wrote Sutton.
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