Buendia creates a Coutinho conundrum

WHEN you have already spent around £40million on an attacking midfielder, forking out an extra £17m to bring the best out of him might appear a little steep. Yet the prospect of losing his place in the Aston Villa team to Philippe Coutinho seems to have galvanised Emiliano Buendia. The Argentine, who was Villa’s record signing when he joined from Norwich last summer and took the departed Jack Grealish’s No 10 shirt, is a spicy, spiky character. On the face of it, Buendia is as confident as they come but even his self-belief would have been dented by Villa boss Steven

Gerrard’s desperation to sign his former Liverpool team-mate Coutinho. Both are at their best in that role behind the forwards in a 4-3-1-2 system. So when Villa decided to take Coutinho from Barcelona permanently following a mixed five-month loan spell, there were doubts about where Buendia would fit in. Two games into the season, Buendia has given Gerrard a puzzle to solve. Where Coutinho has laboured during the opening two games and has just a single goal and no assists from his last 13 league matches, Buendia has looked fresh and creative. When he replaced the Brazilian, who was suffering from muscle tightness, after an hour against Everton, Buendia immediately set up John McGinn for a shot from distance. He then had an effort cleared off the line before launching the attack that led to Danny Ings’ opener and eventually scoring Villa’s decisive second before a Lucas Digne own goal late on gave the visitors hope.

Having staked so much on Coutinho, Gerrard is hardly going to give up on him now. So how does he get both the Brazilian and Buendia in his best team? ‘You don’t pick the team, do you?’ was Gerrard’s sharp response when asked why Buendia was not an automatic starter. ‘I do, so I make those decisions. We’ve got really good options in the final third. Emi Buendia will start matches for this team. ‘We put him on against Everton when the team needed energy and quality and he delivered. Nobody is a bigger fan of Emi Buendia than me.’