Coutinho's hopes for Suarez partnership
Philippe Coutinho hopes his blossoming alliance with Luis Suarez will help Liverpool achieve great things over the coming seasons.
The 20-year-old Brazilian has already claimed three assists and two goals in six appearances since his January move from Inter Milan and has struck an immediate on-field bond with Suarez - even though one speaks Portuguese and the other Spanish.
"I hope that [we become a great partnership] in future and we achieve great things," Coutinho told reporters. "Suarez is a fantastic player. It is an honour for me to play with him.
"It is so much easier to play alongside a player like him because he is always on the move, he never stays still.
"When you have the ball it is much better for you to have a player like that because you can open the defence much more.
"We always communicate on the pitch in Spanish, he speaks Spanish and I understand it. I spent six months in Spain so can get by quite well with it. It is not only him. The other players are always trying to help me get better.
"There were a few occasions when I was quite slow and Steven Gerrard told me to be much quicker with the ball and to mark the opposition players quicker.
"The manager communicates with me in Spanish and always asks me to come into the middle and try to open the play to the wide areas or go straight on. He's playing me in the position I like best, on the left, but able to come inside."
Liverpool fans have already witnessed Coutinho's ability to manoeuvre the ball from a tight space and create a goalscoring opportunity - Jordan Henderson was the beneficiary of such talent last weekend.
Coutinho honed his skills through futsal, a game played on smaller pitches with more emphasis on skill.
"I played futsal from the age of six," he said. "Then when I was seven I went to (Brazilian club) Vasco Da Gama, I was playing futsal until I was 11 before I moved to the pitch.
"This is where I learned my skills. When you play futsal it is more technical and much quicker.
"The place where you play is much smaller and the pace higher so you need to be a highly technical player to play futsal properly.
"That helped me a lot so wherever I go I try to adapt and learn quickly.
"It is a quicker game here as they always say, quicker than in Brazil or Italy. English football is much more intense. It was not so bad when I went to Italy but when I came over it was quite difficult for me to get going, to get into the rhythm of the game.
"Hopefully, further ahead, I'll be able to get to the same level of my teammates as regards the pace of the game."
While Coutinho is getting used to life on the pitch in England, he has been offered a helping hand from fellow Brazilian Lucas - and others - when it comes to settling in away from the game.
"He has been a huge friend," said Coutinho. "He has been like a father giving me all the information I needed, not only him - those other players who speak Spanish all helped me. Lucas has explained how the club works."