I've had just about enough of Luis Suarez now.

The increasingly complicated transfer merry-go-round is grinding into gear. And once again, seemingly controlling this half-arsed machinery is Real Madrid. Well I suppose 'controlling' is something of a strong term for what they seem to be doing, but it is what it is.

Basically everyone wants a new striker. Liverpool haven't been doing well enough to keep their best one so

Maybe we need some kind of gag. 

everyone else wants to sign him, despite his bitey tendencies. 

Well, by everyone else this seems to be Real Madrid and Arsenal, but there's no doubt a few others in the fray who for some reason don't want to conduct transfer negotiations on the back pages of newspapers, like it must be said a certain Mr Suarez seems to be keen on.

For someone with such a stated issue with the media, he does seem to spend an awful lot of time talking to them.

Arsenal seem to gathering their pennies together for a £40m bid for Suarez, which triggers some kind of clause in his contract. Presumably along the lines of us having to tell him about it and him the having to put in a transfer request if he wants to actually go. Which will also cost him money if he does indeed go, if he walks out of the door rather than being pushed.

Now this could all work in our favour IF Real Madrid do actually want to sign Suarez. Nothing like a bidding war to ramp the price up a bit. If we can get up to £50m for him then this would be a decent amount to play with, certainly in terms of getting a replacement or two.

Whether Arsenal are serious about Suarez and if they are just trying to force Madrid's hand over their proposed signing of Higuain remains to be seen. It may even piss Madrid off completely and they won't want to do business with them at all.


Personally I can't see Suarez being happy wth a move to Arsenal. Granted, he seems to be burning his bridges at Anfield reasonably effectively every time he opens his mouth, but it's hardly a massive step up in class. 

Reaching the Champions League Quarter-Final and going out the moment you face anyone half-decent is hardly the stuff that dreams are made of. Even if they do sign Suarez they will still have Per Mertesacker in defence. An interesting coincidence, but Mertesacker is actually German for wardrobe *.

* I'm not sure if this is a fact, but I am just going to assume that it is.

Enough of Arsenal. How does this all affect Liverpool?

Well, we seem to bringing a squad together and hopefully not too recklessly any more. 

We need rid of Suarez sooner rather than later. Incredible that I should be saying this, but his attitude since the end of the season stinks and we do not need that around the club coming into a new season. 

We need him out - preferably out of the country - quickly. Possibly to Real Madrid, and if they want to send us Higuain as part of the deal to piss Arsenal off, well it wouldn't be the worst idea in the world. But with more cash than the Higuain plus £10m rumblings I heard.

Real Madrid's increasing valuation of Higuain leads me to think that this may be what they are angling for and it would have the added bonus of us getting a decent replacement striker out of it as well.

It is still only July - and you never know. The grim realisation that he might actually have to go and play for Arsenal might bring a grovelling apology from Suarez for his actions over the summer and he may stay at Liverpool after all.

Frankly though, I think it would be better all round if we just get rid.

Luis Suarez... making it up as he goes along.

I read today, with some amusement that Arsenal are still sniffing round Luis Suarez.. and whilst you cannot believe everything you read, or in the instance of the British press (especially regarding transfer rumours) anything you read, the story seems to be rumbling on.

Take for instance this from the Independent (click here for link)

Now it seems a little curious for them to describe this £30m bid as being welcomed by Suarez when the only actual quote from Suarez relating to this in the article is  "clubs are still assessing players on their ability which means I could go back and do things well over there"

Rather flimsy grasp of the the words "welcomes bid" and you don't usually get such nonsense from The Independent, but that's not really the point.

The facts are as follows. Luis Suarez has stated previously that he wants to leave Liverpool, not because he wants to leave the club as such, but it is all the fault of the British press. Now amongst Liverpool fans this is keeping it as much on safe ground as you can, whilst still saying you want to leave the club.

However, and I may be being a bit naive here, but he hasn't referred back to his previous comments when being asked about the Arsenal bid. If his actual reason for leaving was that he wanted to leave England, then you would have thought he would have said something along those lines. Although I do appreciate that a player with itchy feet doesn't want to be burning any bridges, especially when he's not actually put in a transfer request as yet. Although he is still on holiday, on his tour of the radio stations of Uruguay... popular tourist attractions I'm lead to believe.

The fact remains that he wants to leave. Now these days, that seems fair enough with player power as it is. But don't just make shit up and start changing your story to suit.

I'd have much more respect for the man, if he said something along the lines of.. "I'm at a time in my career when I need Champions League football and that is something that Liverpool cannot give me at the moment."

Now it's not something we want to hear, but it would at least be true.

I suspect the Arsenal bid has more to do with their own bid for Higuain, trying to force Real Madrid's hand as is often the case in these transfer merry-go-rounds. I'm sure they'd love to sign Suarez, but there is certainly an element of cheek about the whole thing.

One of the worrying thoughts I had about this whole transfer mess concerns Luis Suarez's 10 game ban. Now he's only served 4 games of it so far, with 6 games to go into the new season. Now if Suarez cannot play for anyone until October then why would they want to buy him now?

If I were in Real Madrid's position I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't want to spend £40m on a player that cannot play until October just yet. Sign him nearer the deadline day and you save yourself a month or so in wages and you have a player with a two game ban by the end of August. 

"I've been expecting you"

Now this makes sense if you're Real Madrid, if a little risky, but what that would do is fuck our season right up. Now £40m plus is a decent chunk of change to spend on players, but you cannot do anything with it in September and we'd be back to where we were this time last year with a striker or two light. And we all know the perils of shopping in January when everyone knows you're desperate. Christ, we'll probably end up spending the £40m on Papiss Cissé.

We're not quite in the same place, as Rodgers does seem to have been doing business strengthening the squad, but it remains to be seen how strong he is making it at the moment. Attacking options like Luis Alberto and Iago Aspas may prove to be effective, especially if they click with Coutinho. But if
Suarez does leave than there will be a very big hole to fill, and unless we want to be flapping around in seventh again come next April, it needs to be filled by kick-off in August.