John Terry's vote for Philippe Coutinho as his PFA Player of the Year came as no surprise to Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers, who believes that the Brazilian has gone from strength to strength since arriving in England, and still has his best years ahead of him.
News of Terry's nomination filtered through on Friday when the Chelsea captain posted a photo of his 'team of the year' on Instagram, which includes Coutinho and fellow Liverpool midfielder Raheem Sterling. Accompanying the team were Terry's selections for the individual awards, which went to Coutinho (Player of the Year) and Tottenham's Harry Kane (Young Player of the Year).
"He is a young player that has come into the country and adapted incredibly well to the style of football in the Premier League," said Rodgers, when quizzed on the nomination in his pre-match press conference for Monday's game against Newcastle.
"People looked at him initially and maybe thought he was a bit slight. But he is very strong in his mind, has incredible technique - he is up there with the world's best in terms of technique - and with him it's about the consistency.
"He played in a different position in the game the other night. We asked him tactically to operate differently and he carried that out very, very well. He showed great tactical discipline and obviously scored a wonderful goal. Still, his best years are way ahead of him. He's such a humble boy, wants to train and loves his football every day.
"John [Terry] is probably looking at his performance level. It's been outstanding in the time since he's been here and he's only going to get better, which is the pleasing thing for Liverpool."
Coutinho scored the only goal of the game against Blackburn Rovers to help Liverpool progress to the FA Cup Semi Finals on Wednesday night, a result that Rodgers believes helped get the team back on track after disappointing losses to Manchester United and Arsenal.
"The performance and result the other night puts us back on track again and hopefully from that result we can build the momentum through now until the end of the season," told Rodgers.
"It was an excellent result in a tough tie and we'll just take each game at a time now and focus on the Newcastle game. I thought defensively as a collective we were very good. We'd gone six games away from home and not conceded a goal, and we wanted to return to that mentality in the game because we feel we can create enough opportunities.
"I thought Dejan Lovren was outstanding on the evening. Glen Johnson came in and did a great job at right-back having not played for a little bit of time. Simon [Mignolet] made a couple of great saves when he had to and as a team we pressed the ball really well and nullified most of Blackburn's threats. It was important for us to defend well."
