He played there at the start of the season and wasn't really convincing IMO. We have also conceded a lot of goals against those smaller teams (2 against Huesca, Girona and Leganes). I'm not saying he was the only reason for that but when EV has introduced Arthur in his role in Tottenham away game we had more control and later with Vidal we also got more defensive stability over the last month.
It's easy (and popular here) to blame EV but if his system is really so bad then why is Dembele playing good in that same system and why have newcomers like Arthur and Vidal also performed better than Coutinho? Yes, he was injured for some time but so were Arthur and Vidal and they are playing better. Coutinho should improve his form a lot before I would consider starting him over one of Dembele, Arthur or Vidal. There will be (probably) a lot of games in January so I would use Copa games (when we'll rest some of the players) to get him back on track. It's up to him to show he deserves to be a starter. For me he's currently nothing more than a luxury bench option who can potentially change games coming off the bench though he hasn't done that much either.
Don't think he played there tbh. I've mostly saw him going up and being more of a forward. You say about Leganes, but a lot of times in the Leganes game he was one of our most advanced players on the field, rather than staying for large periods in the midfield. He even scored a goal from an advanced position. And in the Girona game he didn't play from the start, and only went in for 10 men Barca when Girona was 2-1 up. Don't see how him playing after Girona did the damage already is any sign of anything about our defensive structure. We did our worst defensive performance vs Betis in a game Coutinho didn't play due to injury so this idea that Coutinho playing in midfield is a clear factor for our weaknesses in defending is totally false.
Problem is there is no place for an AM in this team because the midfield under Valverde has a very low creative role on purpose. It's Messi-ball tactics usually, with midfielders being there mostly as ball-winners and defensive measures, trying to make up for the very low defensive input of the front 3.
Check the assists stats of our midfielders under Valverde, any midfielder for that matter, and you'll see very low numbers. Coutinho doesn't play in midfield because Valverde is scared to sacrifice a position for a creative first, defensive second type of player. He'd rather use it to strenghten defense. Which is why he plays with 3 midfielders who are all on the defensive side. Rakitic, Busi and Vidal. Even Arthur is used more under Valverde as a safety player, is not allowed to do too much of the creating part. And we get to see more of his fighting spirit and see him doing quite a lot of dispossessions and tackles, engaging in physical duels too (he's kind of underrated in this sense, as he is pretty strong for his stature).
There's no place for Coutinho in midfield because Valverde's team is unbalanced. He tries to hide that by having 3 defensive minded players in midfield. It's sort of like how Argentina used to play with Gago, Mascherano and Biglia behind their front three of Di Maria, Messi and Higuain. Any of those 3 midfielders were supposed to put in a hard shift so they could basically hide the fact that their attackers did very little work off the ball to help the defensive shape. The lack of creativity wasn't too much of a concern, because they had Messi and put everything down on him doing his thing.
