One can blame Valverde enough for Coutinho's situation for sure.
No doubt about his bad form (and a bit of lack of luck too) but just compare him to his fellow countryman Arthur for a minute.
Both shield the ball extremely well, both have low center of gravity. Countinho is a good dribbler, Arthur is okay. Countinho is very creative player, less merit goes for Arthur in that regard.
So why does Arthur perform much better if you compare their overall performances?
Easy to answer, because the difference is in the expectations towards them.
Coutinho's profile is somewhat similar to Messi's, I mean if when Messi plays relatively deep.
So what's wrong with him in the strange Valverde system?
Another easy one: Arthur loses much less balls but he is expected to play relatively safely. At the same time Coutinho is expected to represent much more of attacking danger, so he needs to take those risks that Arthur - for instance - is not expected to do.
So the difference between the two is how they make decisions right after a good initial move. Arthur will make a safe side-pass or back-pass, whereas Coutinho will not try to "play safe" so naturally he has to take some risks, but he has to do that in a position relatively strange to his character, because I guess we all agree upon the fact that he is not a winger, never been a real one.
When he plays for Brazil, usually right behind Neymar, apart from his known curved shots, he actually plays a kind of "Messi role", that's why he usually played quite well when played in the middle besides Messi. But in the present system, being forced to play on the extreme left, close to Alba, he simply doesn't know what to do, apart from looking for Messi and occasionally trying his famous shot from outside the box.
Thus, when Arthur finishes some nice moves with safe passes, he becomes a hero, but Coutinho doesn't know what to do and how to create some danger, because Suarez plays how he does nowadays and Messi is on the right, far from him.
I have said many times here that he was bought as an Iniesta replacement, so unless he is allowed to do just that, I can't see his future in the team, regardless of his price-tag, because I personally don't care for that.
Barca used to have the MSN, and the trio has delivered. Not only some good results but mostly spectacular and truly creative solutions.
But Valverde came with his mediocre personality, with the acidic face of a schoolmaster, Neymar left and that was the end of Barca's famous attacking football.
His main problem with Dembele was if he ran back often enough to defend, everyone had to focus on the defense part, and because both Messi and Suarez are untouchables, he tried to force that 4-4-2 which is still haunting every game.
So Coutinho will play spectacular games with Brazil - I'm sure of that - in a much more creative and free system compared to Valverde's pretty awful understanding of creative football...
