Michael Cox, founder of the popular website Zonal Marking, and a respected journalist with a specialty in football tactics was unimpressed by Liverpool’s opening game of the Premier League season, a drab 1-0 win away to Stoke City lit up by a Philippe Coutinho shot from distance for the winner.

The 86th minute aside, nobody who watched that game could argue too hard with Cox’s assessment:

“Was really pleased about the return of the Premier League until I watched this Stoke v Liverpool game.”

However, the opinion that really caught the eye was his tweet on Liverpool’s Brazilian talisman Coutinho:

“Classic Coutinho – a moment of absolute brilliance at the end of a thoroughly poor performance.”

It is not so much the latter part of the tweet that rankles. Coutinho had been poor in a game that Liverpool as a whole seemed determined not to lose rather than desperate to win. Opta recorded him with less passes than five other Liverpool players, including both Liverpool central defenders, and less passes in the final third than James Milner. He created a single chance and played two throughballs. He did complete the most dribbles in the game (surprisingly one more than Glen Johnson who was second highest), but as Cox notes astutely, dribbles are not an end product or inherently useful in and of themselves.

Yet of course Coutinho caught the eye with the one bit of quality in the entire game. As one of the many Twitter users stirred into commenting by Cox’s tweet noted, it was 2010 Wesley Sneijder at his best.

Does Cox’s opinion hold water in this case? He drew the ire of more than a few Liverpool fans (some making rational arguments, quite a few simply aiming abuse in time-honored Twitter tradition) who see Coutinho as the team’s best player. A 23 year old who has been around long enough to adapt to English football and thrive, but is still someway off from his peak years. What’s not to like?

According to Cox, it’s his inconsistency. It is clear that this is a professional opinion. Cox states that he quite likes the player as a viewer, seeing someone who is a likable and hardworking player. However he is a player that produces great moments, rather than great games. Someone whose reputation has grown based on Match of the Day highlights that show his touches of genius rather than large periods drifting out of the game rather than imposing his will on it.

If great games are built on players having multiple great moments within the game, a steady influence rather than a moment or two interspersed with nothing, Cox may have a point.

As this article by Sam McGuire showed, compared to the top tier play-makers in the Premier League, Coutinho does have a long way to go.

He creates by far the lowest chances per game, and plays the fewest key and successful passes. Nobody can deny that he tries hard, winning the most tackles, and he also completes the most successful take-ons of the group. However, dribbling past someone in and of itself is not that useful. In fact, it could be argued that choosing this option is actually worse for the team when a simple pass could advance the ball further, faster, and with less risk. David Silva, Eden Hazard, and Mesut Ozil play in superior teams, but Coutinho is outperformed by Eriksen who plays with a similar (arguably lower) quality of teammate. It is also the responsibility of a playmaker to ensure a side is more than just the sum of its parts offensively.

Against Bournemouth, Coutinho was similarly ephemeral, a few nice dribbles and touches, one particular sharp pass to an onrushing Jordon Ibe split the Cherries defense. However there was no end-product, whether in terms of a goal or an assist, or even creating multiple clear-chances for his teammates. This not necessarily a huge problem in and of itself, a miniscule amount of footballers truly fit into the top bracket, Coutinho is 23 years old and merely in the ‘quite good’ category below it. What is a problem is that he has come to be Liverpool’s best player.

Cox noted this as well when considering the amount of angry replies his tweet got. The fact that the Brazilian is the best player at a club of Liverpool’s ‘stature’ must be worrying. There was never any doubt that Luis Suarez was a great player, constantly influencing games in a variety of ways, or Gerrard at his peak. When it became a case of if not them then nobody, at least it was a comfort to fans that ‘they’ were extremely capable.

This situation is only going to get worse, with spending power, and prestige gaps increasing every year Liverpool go without Champions League football. Unable to offer massive wages or premier competitions, Anfield may be stuck attracting quite good players rather than already great ones.