5 reasons why Barcelona want Philippe Coutinho in January instead of the summer

#4 Ideal adaptation period for Coutinho

Coutinho will have half-season head start to adapt to La Liga and Barcelona

Make no mistake; no matter how good a player is, a move to Barcelona is not as easy as it looks and immediate success is not guaranteed. Even top players have taken their time to settle down - Coutinho's compatriot Neymar is a perfect example.

Liverpool and Barcelona also employ tactics that are not exactly similar. Of course, both teams do press their opponents to win the ball back but that is about where their similarities end.

Under Ernesto Valverde, Barcelona have returned to a possession-based game compared to Luis Enrique's approach while Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool are more than happy to play on the counter-attack with their Fab Four.

Should Coutinho join the club, he will have to adapt to not only La Liga (where his technical brilliance would see him thrive) but also to Valverde's 4-4-2 formation where the wide midfielders play narrower than usual.

Whether Valverde plans to play him as a central playmaker is another question that needs to be answered. It is a role Tite wanted to experiment with.

"If you have Coutinho in perfect condition, 100 per cent fit, we could try and play him through the middle. But we played with him as a winger because right now, Coutinho is playing there for Liverpool." - Tite

The healthy lead and these five months will give Valverde the opportunity to play him in different roles to figure out his best position (and possibly the ideal formation for Barcelona) so they can start 2018/19 on a positive note rather than wait for Coutinho to come good next season.