The Luis Suarez Situation

Well, well, well, because we didn’t have enough stupid transfer sagas going on at the moment (Yes Wayne, and Man Utd I’m looking at you here) Liverpool, Arsenal and Luis Suarez kindly thought that they would provide us with one more.

I had a crack at the whole Wayne Rooney debacle the other week so I think that the time has come for me to try and straighten this one out as well.  So rather predictably I will start at the beginning. Here we go.

Luis Suarez wanting to leave Liverpool isn’t really anything new in itself; he has made his position quite clear on a few different occasions now, so we can be sure that he does want to go. But it has to be said that right now he isn’t blessed with hundreds of options. The one that seems the most obvious at the moment is Arsenal, this is basically because we know that they have made a couple of bids for him. Whether or not these bids were serous or not remains to be seen. It also seems to be accepted that little Luis wants to at least talk to the Gunners. Which is quite funny considering that one of the reasons he gave for wanting to leave Liverpool was to get away from the British media.

But with dodgy reasoning aside, it seems that Suarez will get his wish to at least talk to Arsenal as with their last bid they have apparently activated a clause which means that they can talk to him even if they haven’t agreed a fee with Liverpool. And Liverpool are standing their ground and holding out for a bid somewhere north of £50 million. Which in my opinion is daylight robbery if they get it.

Now for me, this is where it gets a little bit interesting. Much like over in Manchester with Mr Rooney I don’t think that losing Suarez would be the total disaster some people seem to think that it would be. For starters if they get a huge transfer fee they a have plenty to spend in order to get a replacement in. But again I don’t think that getting in a direct replacement would be the be all and end all. They have already signed a striker in the form of Aspas, they could potentially give Coutinho a more prominent role, youngster Luis Alberto has come in and may provide a spark in patches and there is nothing to say that Sturridge won’t step up and be the main man this season. So there are plenty of options available to Liverpool and now that Suarez has in my view has become more trouble than he is worth it may well pay them to go down one of these avenues than try and keep the Uruguayan. It may also be interesting to note that it looks like that Suarez was probably hoping that Real Madrid would have come in for him but so far there hasn’t even been a whisper from Spain as Madrid seem more interested in Gareth Bale. So it looks like Arsenal or one of the biggest back tracks in history could be Suarez’ only options.

There is of course one more side to this story, and that is the Arsenal side. At the moment I can’t quite work out whether this whole thing is a statement of intent from the Gunners or just posturing on a whole new level. They have already seen their efforts to sign Gonzalo Higuain come to nothing. This is either because they spent so long dilly-dallying over the deal or that Madrid out of the blue demanded more money, it depends who you believe. And with Liverpool playing hard ball over Suarez would it be worth having a quiet word with Manchester United about Wayne Rooney? He would be cheaper in terms of transfer fee, although his wages would be higher but I think he would work out cheaper in the long run. This is not to say that Rooney would be willing to sign or that United would want to sell to Arsenal but I was always taught that if you don’t ask you don’t get, and it will cost Arsene nothing to at least ask.

In conclusion… Just like the rest of you I have no idea what’s going to happen, but one thing is for sure, whenever a certain Uruguayan is involved it’s never dull.