The only “fact” we’ve had so far from this story is the £30 million bid that was rejected by Liverpool. I’m still not 100% sure what the reason for the bid was – whether it was to “hurry along” the Higuain deal (which according to Florentino Perez was never on the table in the first place) or the possibility that we were actually interested in signing him.
The problem is, either one of those explanations make no sense. The idea that we would bid on an player that Real Madrid were interested in to push through another deal seems preposterous. The idea it would “panic” Real Madrid into selling Higuain for a lower price so they could have cash for the Suarez deal is ridiculous. This is a team that spent £80 million on Cristiano Ronaldo so they obviously have the means to raise funds if required. And if anything, bidding on a Real Madrid “target” would more than likely piss them off rather than help matters.
Higuain is reportedly “confused” at Arsenal’s bid for Suarez and the big question is that how can Arsenal haggle over a couple of million for Higuain and then offer Liverpool £30 million?
You can only speculate (which is what everyone else seems to be doing) that we didn’t want to pay Real Madrid their valuation of Higuain and we decided to go for Suarez instead.
But that doesn’t make sense either.
So if we weren’t playing games with Real Madrid then Arsene Wenger could actually be interested in bringing Suarez to Arsenal. But with a club that Arsene himself has labelled as having “class”, why would we even entertain the idea of bringing in a player with major temperament problems, been found guilty of racism on the football field and has not once, but twice bitten another footballer. Then there is the fact that he dives and cheats at every opportunity. Of course we had players like Bobby who used to “fall easily” now and then but he wasn’t as hated as Suarez is. Surely, Suarez is not even worth the risk?
We’ve had problematic players in the past such as Ashley Cole, Emmanuel Adebayor, Samir Nasri and Nicklas Bendtner, and the first thing Arsene has tried to do is get rid of them.
The bid of £30 million does have the smell of Arsenal trying to get a deal. As I’ve said before (apparently controversially) I think he is overrated. He is a good player but nowhere near being in the Top 5 forwards in the world like some Liverpool-biased pundits claim he is. Ronaldo, Messi, Falcao, Ibrahimovic, Aguero, Van Persie… there’s 6 already. With his problems, Suarez’s market value is probably around the £32 million mark. He is a player who can easily get himself banned for long periods and has shown that already at Ajax and now Liverpool. Without his taste for human flesh and the inability to avoid confrontation, then he would be worth around £45 million.
People will compare the £24 million we got for Van Persie who was in the last year of his contract, to Suarez who has 3 years left on his current deal to run. The fact is though, Suarez has publicly declared numerous times that he wants to leave and that compromises his market value. Look at Cesc Fabregas when he joined Barcelona – he was worth double what we got for him at the time and we majorly lost out.
Anyway, the only thing I know about the whole Luis Suarez affari is that it seems to make no sense whatsoever!
