The true facts of the case, as brilliantly laid out in this article, are that Arsenal did what every clubs do when it comes to a release clause. Bid £1 over expecting it to be activated and allowing for talks with the target player.
10-years ago yesterday was the day The Arsenal offered £40m+£1 for Luiz Suarez. A decade on and Arsenal still get criticised for the deal. But what actually happened?
Liverpool challenged the legitimacy of this clause, claiming it was not a release clause, but merely meant they had to inform Luis Suarez of the bid.
With all parties disagreeing over what the clause meant, the result would have meant that Luis Suarez would have to take Liverpool to the Court of Arbitration for Sport for breach of contract.
Now this would have been time consuming, with appeals and long drawn out legal proceedings. It is unlikely it would of been completed by the end of the transfer window.
This lead Arsenal to drop their interest fairly quickly once Liverpool established their stance and made it clear they would defend their opinion in a court of law.
In the end, Suarez decided not to tie himself him up in a costly, timely court case and signed a new contract. He would leave for Barcelona a year later.
Six months after the failed bid, Liverpool owner John W Henry would later admit that Suarez “had a buyout clause of £40m” and he simply refused to sell, despite Arsenal’s bid triggering it.
But what would have happened if we signed Suarez 10-years ago?
Having missed out on their number one target, Arsenal waited until deadline day before making only big signing of the summer – Mesut Ozil.
Money was tight that summer and up until deadline day, the only two senior signings were Yaya Sanogo and Mathieu Flamini. Less than £500k spent.
Had we signed Suarez, it is unlikely we would have had the funds left to also get in Ozil. And the signing of Ozil would also impact the next summer.
2014 former Arsenal captain Cesc Fabregas was looking to get out of Barcelona. His first call was to Arsene Wenger, his footballing father.
Fabregas wanted a return to North London, and Wenger was open to him rejoining. But the problem was we had one of the best number 10s in world football. Mesut Ozil.
We simply did not have the space for Fabregas in the squad, and the Spaniard joined Chelsea.
At the same time, another Barcelona player was out of favour. Alexis Sanchez. He would join Arsenal for a similar fee as to what Chelsea signed Cesc for. And I the ultimate irony, Suarez would go to Catalonia.
In the real world, Arsenal had Ozil and Sanchez. No real complaints.
But in another universe, Arsenal signed Suarez, didn’t have the money for Ozil, and then the next season signed Cesc.
Ozil and Sanchez or Cesc and Suarez. Which due would you have preferred?
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Keenos
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 
Arsenal would have won the games against liverpool and chelsea, had they brought Saurez and Fabrigas and with Saurez being top scorer would have won the league. So Saurez and Fabrigas would have been a better option had Wenger not gone stupid with the sarcastically bid of the extra £1. Should have bid £45 mil or £50 mil and not tried to make a poor statement. Wenger also lost out on Messi, Ronaldo, Ibrahimivic and Mbappe due to his frugality. We may have got them if we had David Dien in charge of purchasing!
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You are re-writing history here
Suarez – Liverpool have said they had no intention of selling, no matter the price
Messi – he decided to stay at Barcelona whilst Cesc and Pique moved
Ronaldo – was an unknown 18 year old. We had a deal agreed for £4-5m. Man U came in with £13m. We had no money that summer
Ibrahimovic – He was a 17 year old that turned down a trial. We had Henry, Bergkamp, Kanu and Wiltord at the club
Mbappe – we could not compete with what state owned PSG was paying
David Dein – stopped being in charge of these things in 2007. He was a key part of the club for Messi, Ronaldo and Ibrahimovic
As I started, youve just created your own narrative to suit your agenda.
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Enjoy reading this site but that question has got to be a wind-up. There`s no comparison. Ozil had the heart of a lamb and Sanchez was a bluffer and a mercenary. Fabregas was one of the most gifted players to play in Red & White and Suarez, along with Shearer is probably the best out and out centre forward I`ve seen in the PL. Both were absolute winners. Not signing Suarez was definitely a sliding doors moment for Wenger at The Arsenal.
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Making any choice out of the two will still make Arsenal Football Club look bad. That’s what happened when we try to make honest business with the devil. Gets sabotaged and swindled at the same time. My personal experience of that is called ‘get chinesed’. I would rather discuss more constructive hypothetical questions like Arsenal hiring Wenger or Mourinho, Arsenal owned by Kroenke or Usmanov, Arsenal has Emirates or Highbury and etc.
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Mourinho wasn’t relevant when we hired Wenger
Mourinho joined Chelsea in 2004, we had just gone unbeaten
Kroenke is clearly a better owner than Usmanov. See Everton.
We had to move from Highbury to the Emirates to not be left behind.
That’s it discussed.
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