Apparently, the news of Arsenal being interested in Luis Suarez was more than just a rumor, as the North London club made a bid for the Liverpool striker but got rejected.
Both the Times and the Telegraph are reporting that Arsenal surprised Liverpool with the offer, but the £30 million they waves in front of the Anfield club were not enough. Suarez was signed for £23 million when he came for Ajax, but when you use the Andy Carroll measuring stick (£35 million in the same transfer window), the offer Arsenal made was completely unacceptable.
Making an approach for Suarez tells of the situation with Real Madrid and the Gunners: Gonzalo Higuain looked like he was on his way to London just one week ago, but the negotiations aren’t as far along as initially thought, with quite a lot of money separating the two sides, and Arsenal feeling a lot more confident about the prospect of Suarez succeeding at the Emirates than Higuain is.
Is it over? For now, Liverpool aren’t likely to accept anything: Suarez isn’t for sale, as we keep hearing from the club, but things might change. If Arsenal, or any other club, start making offers of around £40 million, it’s going to get a lot harder to keep turning them down.
And there is Suarez themselves. With the theory of keeping an unhappy player to the best interests of a club, there’s a good chance that Suarez himself will “settle” for remaining in the Premier League with a Champions League club and give up his Real Madrid dream, and more approaches for more money might start increasing the pressure from within to let the Uruguayan striker go.