"I can't see why any footballer would want to play for Liverpool... a club with an ego for the Champions League and a squad for mid-table mediocrity. Suarez understandably wants to jump ship. The poor guy is forced to play with Downing each week. Suarez tried to be nice about it, he tried to politely say he wanted to leave, but that can only go so far when you've got a desperate, failing club who don't respect the wishes of their players. Frankly, Liverpool should be grateful that Suarez stayed as long as he did. For a player of his quality to give a club like Liverpool two and a half years of his time, they should be kissing his boots and giving him their best wishes."
Have taken this off an arsenal thread. In some ways I would like to see him go to arsenal and then see what they say about the "poor guy" in a year or two when real/bayern/juventas come calling. Incredibly 2 faced and incredibly desperate
And to link what you're saying and indeed what Rodgers was saying last night we have this from Barnesy:
John Barnes claims that modern football fans are to blame for the situation surrounding Luis Suárez – and is not at all surprised to see the striker demand to leave the club.
The 26-year-old Arsenal target has made public his desire to quit Liverpool for a club in the Champions League in the last few days, despite the Reds’ insistence that he is not for sale.
But Barnes feels that modern-day supporters should not be surprised to see such situations arise, because fans have made the players“untouchable”.
“Why are you so surprised? This situation has been going on for years,” Barnes told talkSPORT.
“I said when [Fernando] Torres signed [for Liverpool], ‘don’t fall in love with him because if he decides he’s going to go, don’t be surprised’. And I said the same about Suárez.
“This is the future of modern football we have created. The media and especially the fans have empowered players too much to make them feel that a) they are better than their team-mates and b) they’re better than their clubs.
“We’ve seen it at Arsenal where so many players have left because Arsenal cannot match their ambitions, and the fans are the ones who have created this superstar culture whereby you’ve separated the team and the superstars to feel more important than the club.
“What has empowered him and the likes of Torres is they feel team is losing not because of them but because of their team-mates.
“Suárez is saying he needs to go because they’ve not qualified for the Champions League, but he was part of the team that failed to do that. He has to take responsibility for that. He’s saying, ‘I’ve done my job, I’m good enough, but the players I’m playing with aren’t’.
“Our superstar players feel they are untouchable. We’ve gone too far and there’s no way back.
“The fans have a lot to answer for. Don’t fall in love with players because they will leave given the right circumstances.
“Support the club, support the group and then, if any player wants to step out of line, we won’t support him. Maybe then they won’t get over-inflated egos and behave the way they do.”
Suarez leaving Training, is he crying!!!
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Well said John Barnes, well said.
Can't say that he's crying in the picture on the previous page (when was it taken?) but that's not a happy man, but we know this anyway. The intriguing question is why does he look so miserable, is he just sad about not getting his way, has he been given a rollicking by management, is it because he's now being blanked by the rest of the squad, is it because the krokettes in England aren't so good?
The thing with Suarez is he always believes he is the victim, it's pathalogical. He will genuinely be crying because he's feeling sorry for himself, not because of the mess and disrespect he's brought the club
I have the pic up on my 50in flat screen and when you Zoom in it sure does look like he is crying like a little girl!!!
Whinging or he's got serious hayfeverI disagree somewhat. I don't think the fans have created this. Certainly most fans I know hate the fact that players are pampered and treated like superstars.
The huge amounts of money and the media circus surrounding the game have led many young impressionable players to perhaps believe that being able to kick a ball makes you a special person. For an 18year old lad from an ordinary background to be earning in a week what others take years to make is frankly obscene.
Perhaps I'm wrong, perhaps there's a generation of fans who've grown up with this madness and accept it as normal but to blame the fans does seem to me to be attempt to shift the blame from the real, less simplistic, sources of the problem.
Still think we should have gone to court over the Evra business.


I disagree somewhat. I don't think the fans have created this. Certainly most fans I know hate the fact that players are pampered and treated like superstars.
The huge amounts of money and the media circus surrounding the game have led many young impressionable players to perhaps believe that being able to kick a ball makes you a special person. For an 18year old lad from an ordinary background to be earning in a week what others take years to make is frankly obscene.
Perhaps I'm wrong, perhaps there's a generation of fans who've grown up with this madness and accept it as normal but to blame the fans does seem to me to be attempt to shift the blame from the real, less simplistic, sources of the problem.
[video=youtube;LOZuxwVk7TU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOZuxwVk7TU[/video]
Telegraph providing some excellent coverage of this, of all places, another interestiing article here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...ker-Luis-Suarez-is-getting-a-toxic-cheat.html
Even by footballers’ cynical standards, Luis Suárez’s current contempt for his Liverpool team-mates, employers, supporters and profession is breath-taking if not entirely unexpected. A propensity for deceit seems ingrained in Suárez’s DNA. He’s toxic.
A wonderful attacking talent, Suárez sadly embodies many of the game’s darker traits, the verbal and physical assaults on opponents, the cheating, the lack of respect for contracts, the greed and belief that the game revolves solely around them. Suárez is the very model of the modern major mercenary taken to a particularly ugly extreme.
He is precisely the type of selfish footballer whom Gordon Taylor was talking about when warning of football being in danger “of losing its soul”, an unprofessional professional who further taints the game’s already stained reputation. Now, Suárez has had the gall to turn to Taylor’s players’ union to help extricate him from Anfield so he can move to Arsenal.
The emotions evoked by this unseemly saga range from the anger felt within Liverpool at Suárez’s desire to leave, the glee of many newly-pragmatic Arsenal fans and the huge frustration in most quarters that Suárez is not leaving English football altogether, taking his corrosive smoke cloud with him. He will eventually.
It will be a small leaving-do, probably at Heathrow, probably before he boards a plane to Madrid after two prolific, spiky years in north London.
Prompted by their appalled American owners, Liverpool are taking a stand, refusing to grant his desire to play for Arsenal. You’ll never train alone?
You will now. Those who know Suárez well, like Steven Gerrard, talk of a good character, devoted to his family. But Suárez is not competing for husband of the year awards or best dad. He may improve his behaviour, ending a charge-sheet that contains racist abuse, two biting incidents, a few dives and engineering exits from clubs, but few would bet on it. He wants to win at all costs.
So, seemingly, do Arsenal now. They will be buying goals and trouble.
Little criticism can be directly laid at their door. They are merely exploiting a situation just as they have themselves been in recent summers.
But buyer beware. Arsène Wenger has always prided himself on his principles so chasing such a notorious character is a distinct change of tack. Wenger needs a trophy, desperately, so his focus has switched to an instant impact, a guarantor of goals and Suárez is certainly that. This is a signing to prevent this season being Wenger’s last. No more a soft touch.
No more easy games for opposing centre-halves. Suárez will give Arsenal the sort of devilish qualities their front-line needs. No more Mr Nice Guys.
There is a price to pay for making such a pact. In a smart reception at the Emirates in 2011, Arsenal became the first club to receive the Advanced Level of Kick It Out’s Equality Standard, celebrating their “first rate” equality practices and policies.
“This is a great achievement for Arsenal and is something of which the supporters and staff can all be very proud,’’ said the club’s chief executive, Ivan Gazidis, in receiving the award from Lord Ouseley.
“However, we fully recognise there is a lot to be done to eradicate all forms of discrimination in football and beyond.’’ Indeed. Gazidis is about to sign somebody found guilty of calling a black player “negro” seven times.
Clubs are understandably obsessed with the bottom line and the finishing line, but they must also appreciate the potential damage to their image.
Arsenal have a distinguished, highly successful community department who have long campaigned against racism, not least in their admirable Arsenal for Everyone initiative that promoted diversity. Past players like Paul Davis, Ian Wright and the late David Rocastle endured racist abuse on the pitch. It will be interesting to hear of Thierry Henry’s reaction to Suárez next time the revered Frenchman visits London Colney.
As for Liverpool, there is inevitably some sympathy. They stayed loyal to Suárez in the past but in truth they should have offloaded him before — or certainly called him to account for shaming the club – after he was found guilty of racially abusing Patrice Evra and after he bit Branislav Ivanovic.
Liverpool have not handled a serial offender well. Now they are standing up to him. Too late. They’ll have to sell him at some point.
Liverpool will survive; they’ve been through worse. Brendan Rodgers and Gerrard will rally the players. So will the Kop. Daniel Sturridge may rise to the challenge. The team will be poorer but the club better.
Life goes on. Suárez will go on, playing against Evra, Ivanovic and on Nov 2 against Liverpool. His name will be taken in profane vain around the country. He’s loathed in English football.
He does not seem to care.
The fumigators must stay on standby until Suárez finally departs these shores.
Henry Winter conveniently forgets to mention that John Henry is reported as saying that he will not sell Suarez to Arsenal "AT ANY PRICE" thereby making his assumption that Arsenal will sign him null and void.