Former Liverpool donkey Jamie Carragher feels Arsenal’s inability to sign Luis Suarez has cost them two of the last three Premier League titles. To be fair I actually agree with him on this. When finding out Suarez had a release clause, Arsenal offered just £1 more than his alleged £40 million release. The offer was subsequently refused, and the rest they say is history as the Uruguay international enjoyed a breathtaking campaign with the Reds and then went on to join Barcelona where his goalscoring record has only improved. While Suarez is on course to add yet more titles, Arsenal are faltering in the Premier League title race and looking back on what could have been. (again) “Wenger and Arsenal were under the impression, remember, that a bid of more than £40million would take Suarez away from Liverpool but they took that to the extreme. By putting just £1 above the fee they thought would trigger a deal, it ensured business would never get done,” Carragher wrote. ”Not signing Suarez is the biggest mistake of Wenger’s reign. Had Arsenal pushed the boundaries for Suarez, perhaps with an offer of £50m, I believe they would have won the Barclays Premier League in two of the last three seasons. That’s the thing about Suarez: whichever team he plays for, he drags them to a higher level.” I have to say I agree. If we were willing to pay £40m, Surely 45-50 Million would have done the trick? Aside from being a world class goal scorer, Suarez’s energy and willingness to work hard makes him one of the best forwards in World Football. You have to say Suarez playing alongside Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez, he would have taken the club to a new level.
Or Alexis. Wenger would probably thought he had done enough by getting Suarez and would have just ignored the ****ing midfield and defence like he always does.
Ozil, as fabulous as he is, was a player bought to appease the fans after the Suarez/Higuain debacle....especially after the donkey Gazidis promised a war chest was available a few months before. Czech is a departure from the norm for Arsenal as he represents the purchase of a WC in a position that we actually NEED.
Not true. I think a Suarez/Ibra/Lewandowski calibre forward would have won us the league a few times in the last 5-6 Seasons. We always create soo many chances. I think a good 10-15 pts a Season would be added with that kind of player.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, at the time I thought 40 million was to much for suarez, remember he was not that prolific at that time, it was only the next season that he became a goal machine, and 40 million, or even 50 million would have been regarded as money well spent, had we spent 50 million on him that summer I would have been extremely annoyed and thought that we got ripped off. The club could not possibly have legislated for liverpool simply refusing to honour the release clause, and John Henry admitted that it was a release clause, and that they should have accepted it, but just simply refused to.
if it was a clear release clause then Liverpool could not legally stop him going so either he did not want to join Arsenal or it was not a real release clause. IIRC he was desperate to join you and called in the lawyers and others to force a move ... the fact that he failed shows it could not have been a release clause imo.
Henry admitted it, to have gone to court ect would have taken months, even years. http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/mar/02/liverpool-john-henry-luis-suarez-clause
the article uses terms like "reported to have said" ... I am not a lawyer but if a club could simply refuse to honour a contract on the basis that it would take months or years to get to court then players wouldn't have clauses in them as they are pointless. I suspect that Suarez did not have an enforceable clause (ie it was open to interpretation) and John Henry was giving it the big I am in his speech in America. But then this is all guess work on my part!
The article does have direct quotes in it, hence the reason i used it, and the reason i used it was to show that there was a clause. the club took a lot of stick saying that we should have just offered more money, however even now no one knows for sure if it was a proper clause or not, arsenal and suarez thought that it was, so why would we pay more.
Wasn't defending or attacking Arsenal's offer of £1 over £40m ... just wondering about whether the buy out clause actually existed
I think it's now widely accepted that the clause in Suarez' contract was a 'good faith' clause. Basically it meant that if a club came in with a bid that exceeded £40m then Liverpool agreed to negotiate with that club in good faith in order to facilitate the transfer of Suarez. Imo the clause was based on Suarez looking to use Liverpool as a stepping stone to bigger and better things, and hoping that if he showcased himself in England for a few seasons that would gain him a move to a top club in the CL. The problem with such a clause is that it isn't really binding, as it's hard to really pin down the concept of 'good faith', so hard to actually secure a release. I think Liverpool's argument was that Suarez performed so well for them that £40m could no longer be seen as a fair fee for the player. So when Arsenal made a bid that was quite obviously based on the release clause rather than the value of the player, that did not represent good faith on Arsenal's part, therefore there was no need to negotiate. They might also have held the view that Arsenal didn't really represent a step up, and requesting a move to a domestic rival didn't represent good faith on Suarez' part. That's the main reason Suarez agreed to sign a new contract with Liverpool, after spending all summer trying to leave, in order to get one with a proper release clause so he could move the following summer. Although even then his £75m release clause was pretty moot, with Barca managing to negotiate a £10m discount after his latest biting incident.
This is true, he even managed to inprove Barca who already had a formidable team. Gone a bit pear shaped recently though.
Regardless of the playing personnel, Wenger will always find a way NOT to win the title and just settle for top 4. The current squad is good enough to win THIS season's title. Every team is the image of its manager. Ours is wimpy.
I dont agree with this actually. I think when you look at Wengers title winning sides they had enough leaders/big characters that they didn't need that external shoulder to fall back on. When Wenger switched to smaller technical players, he also stopped focusing on recruiting 'characters'. For the most part anyway. He has even admitted this in interviews - he switched from building teams based on athletic ability to building teams on footballing ability. (Partly influenced by Spains success at the time.) As a result we had less characters and less 'alpha-male' types.
I think I'd have to agree with this . There are a half dozen players that if any of them joined a really good club , that just can't quite get over the top , would make them great. Suarez is one of them , Sanchez or Ozil aren't imo
