Speaking on Jamie Carragher’s Greatest Game Podcast, Jonathan Woodgate has explained that Tottenham were monitoring Phillipe Coutinho almost a decade ago.
The ex-Spurs centre-half was talking about his close relationship with Michael Edwards, who was an analyst at Tottenham during his time at the club, and he said that the pair used to watch clips of Coutinho together while he was at White Hart Lane.
Woodgate was talking about how he became a scout at Liverpool and his relationship with the Reds’ Sporting Director.
“I tell you how it came about, Michael Edwards was at Spurs, he was an analyst at Spurs, and every day I used to be in there watching players with him. Watching Coutinho actually when he was at Inter Milan, watching him and thinking ‘what a player’,” Woodgate said.
“He called me in and said ‘come and have a look at this player’ and it was Coutinho, and every day we’d just watch.”
Woodgate of course left Tottenham in 2011, so this story is almost a decade old.
When you consider that Coutinho would move in 2013 for just £8.5 million, you have to say that Tottenham missed out on one of the biggest bargains in the club’s history.
Add into that the fact that he has since been compared to Lionel Messi, moved for £142 million to Barcelona and won a Champions League with Bayern Munich, and this missed opportunity begins to sting even more.
Michael Edwards knows what he’s doing, and that’s why he spotted Coutinho a mile off almost 10 years ago, but unfortunately for Tottenham, the club didn’t pursue him with more intent.
Who knows what Spurs’ history would have looked like if they’d have signed Coutinho when they were initially looking at him.
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