Liverpool’s former sporting director Damien Comolli spoke with ESPNFC on how he/Liverpool went about signing Philippe Coutinho: “In the spring of 2012, the owners told me they had a limited budget for the market, up to 10 million for a player and if you want you could just buy under 21. At that point I said to the scouts that Coutinho should be our priority because we were looking for a substitute for Dirk Kuyt but he was not available at that time because he was loaned to Espanyol. I did not even know he was such a good player because Inter was not playing him before. We knew he was better only when Rafa Benitez told us that he would become a world-class player. And when Rafa says something typically, you can not ignore it. The chief scout told us he would be the best we could get.”

Source: FCInterNews.it