Coutinho staying at Aston Villa: Brazilian takes huge pay cut to remain in PL

Philippe Coutinho’s nightmare spell at Barcelona finally came to an end on Wednesday night, when it was confirmed that he had agreed to join Aston Villa on a permanent basis, signing a four-year deal.

The Brazilian playmaker has been in fantastic form since arriving at Villa Park on loan in January – and is believed to have taken a substantial pay cut in order to continue playing in the Premier League.

The news, which was announced during Villa’s end-of-season awards dinner, will have been welcomed by boss Steven Gerrard – who had reportedly made keeping Coutinho at the club his top priority this summer.

In order to seal his permanent switch, though, Coutinho had to accept a drastic reduction in wages from the £470,000-per-week that he had been pocketing at Camp Nou.

Per a report from the Telegraph’s John Percy, Coutinho is expected to earn around £125,000-per-week at Villa – a drop of more than 70% from his Barcelona deal.

As lucrative as his four-year spell in Catalunya was, however, Coutinho saw much playing time during his final years at Barca, often relegated to a periphery role on the bench.

Barcelona, too, have taken a considerable hit in ending their ill-fated relationship with Coutinho – recouping just £17 million of the £142m that they paid Liverpool for him in January 2018.

With more than 12 months still to run on his Barcelona deal, Coutinho could quite easily have opted to sit and collect his massive Barcelona until next summer.

His willingness to sacrifice such an eye-watering sum each week in order to play regular football as he bids for a place in Brazil’s World Cup squad has been praised by fans on Reddit.

“He really wants to play for Brazil still. He got back into the squad after joining us. I think