How important is Philippe Coutinho to Liverpool?

Now before I jump right in to the topic at hand, our hero Coutinho, lets remember the last time we had a gritty 1-0 win over Stoke on the opening day. That was of course two seasons ago and it was part of a pretty good start to a wonderful season. So, once more the eternal optimist, this result is quite wonderful and may take us on to greater things.

With some tricky fixtures coming up quick lets hope the team continues to click, and Lovren continues to grow out of his awful first season. As not fun as our opening win was, grungy games always bring me a little hope, good teams win ugly games.

In the news this week was Kaka praising Coutinho, now he is not the first of his high profile country men to praise the Little Magician, Neymar did the same at the beginning of the year. However, Kaka brought an interesting idea to the table. The idea of building the team around Coutinho. Kaka stated, as quoted by the Echo, “One great player doesn’t make a team, but you can build a team around one great player, and I believe he can be that player.” The question I now ask, is he right?

Building around the immensely talented, humble, and loyal young player is a tasty idea. We saw against Stoke how important a moment of Coutinho magic can be. He won us our first three points, and I would be shocked if he doesn’t win us a couple more in the coming months.

Coutinho has only improved in his time at Liverpool.  He has been a fantastic buy and continues to improve. He is becoming a regular in the Brazil side. He is simply a joy to watch. A team built around such an entertaining player seems to be a delightful prospect.

Watching Manchester City crush West Brom shows why building a team around Coutinho would be so delightful. Now City is certainly built around Aguero, whenever they can be, but they also rely heavily on David Silva. As they put away a team they should beat, something City is very good at doing, Silva’s genius was influential in almost every attack.

He terrorized the defenders with his close control and excellent passing. His influence in controlling the attack was highly influential and is very important to City as they boss the little guys. This is one of the key areas where Liverpool could improve, putting away the smaller teams that they should beat. Coutinho could be very important to that endeavor. The smaller teams are not able to handle the passing quality of a player like Silva, and a player like Coutinho is becoming.

It is important to note that Coutinho is likely not to put together a Suarez like contribution. I see a lot more assists in Coutinho’s future. Though with Benteke, and a hopefully a healthy Sturridge, assists should be enough.

Coutinho becoming a Silva-esque player that Liverpool centered itself around could make a strong team. And whether we are building a Coutinho based team or not Rodgers is certainly putting together a creative group of players. A group of players that will hopefully grow into an exciting attacking unit.

So I ask you internet, the fountain of wisdom, the following:

Should Liverpool build around Coutinho?

What would be required to do so?

Is that the direction Rodgers is heading?

How important is Coutinho to our top four chances this season?

What players are more important?

Now that last one is an interesting question. Players that could become more important, in my opinion: Jordan Henderson, Sturridge, and Benteke. Jordan could have an immense season. I am a big fan of the lad and I believe he will continue to add more goals and assists to his portfolio. The last two are goal scorers. They could become more important for obvious reasons. (We really need goals).

I look forward to reading your comments.  We all love Philippe but how crucial is he really?