Liverpool FC Forum

[Red Focus]

Knowing Suarez's ambition to play for any of the big two in Spain, whether the biting incident happened or not, he would have gone in this window anyway. The question is how much we can fetch for him. Selling our best player and footballer and player of the year will definitely be a few steps backwards. BR will have to change his attacking, possession football to win enough games to challenge for the title. It is impossible to have a direct replacement for LS.

Liverpool should insist on selling him for at least 80M and don't let them have him for cheap.

[Boocity]

If Suarez is going for 70 to 80 mill then we should blow Arsenal out of water with an excessive bid for Sanchez, Wenger will have a price he will pay and won't get into a bidding war, it's what other teams have been doing to us. If we start trying to get him on the cheap or just matching their bid we may lose, he's probably been sold on London rather than Arsenal being the dream team.

[SouthCoastShankly]

Mail reporting Barca have offered £72m straight cash. If true, can't imagine this dragging out too long as that offer is probably not too far off what we are asking for. Seems as though Sanchez is not keen on a move to us either. All well and good being linked with all these attacking midfielders, but a top quality striker has got to be a priority.

That's actually a bit of a blow, Sanchez is one of the few available footballers on the face of the planet that could have gone some way to filling the Suarez size hole that will be left in our team and now to make matters worse he is on the verge of joining one of our direct rivals just as we lose our best player. Arsenal will be significantly strengthened just as we are significantly weakened.
I'm actually surprised we haven't played a bit of brinkmanship with Barca and threatened to walk away if Sanchez is not included in any deal, it's all happened so fast and we just seem a bit keen to take the money and run.
If we could have went into next season with Sanchez and Markovic we might have broke even but none of the names we are currently being linked with fill me with any sort of confidence.

You are right once again Yakka.

It is absolutely imperative that we get Sanchez in the deal.

There is a huge risk that this money will be squandered on rubbish that will come nowhere near to filling the hole that Suarez's departure will leave.

We have to be tough here and negotiate for a player that will dramatically improve our front line, there is no time for nonsense here from Ayre or his minions. 

Our demands need to be met, either Sanchez toughens up and stops being a little princess or we walk away......

don't be a dunce. If there's a £75M cash offer on the table, as suggested. No club in their right mind would walk away from over 200% profit on a player because a player moving in the other direction doesn't happen.

[kazza]

by BrianReade
John Henry needs to step up again and ask what the Catalans are smoking if they try to knock £20m off the price of world's most sought-after striker, writes Brian Reade

The price is right: Liverpool must not fall for Barcelona's favourite transfer-market tactic
It’s good to see Barcelona’s camper-van turn up at this summer of footballing love with flowers in their wipers and peace signs on the windows.

Good to see this font of all righteousness take a moral lead by urging the world to turn the other cheek to a repentant sinner.

“Luis Suarez has been humble enough to apologise to those he has offended... it’s the best thing a person can do,” says Barca’s sporting director Andoni Zubizarreta here.

“He is an honourable man,” intones club president Josep Maria Bartomeu here.

Once again, the institution that so modestly calls itself “more than a club” is looking after the oppressed.

Just as they did when they urged Arsenal to allow that poor missing child Cesc Fabregas to return home (on the cheap) and Liverpool to “act humanely” and release a “depressed” Javier Mascherano into their care (on the cheap).

Tiki-taka may be dead, but tacky-tacky is still the Barcelona way when it comes to tapping up the world’s best players then haggling for a massive price reduction on humanitarian grounds.

And, in the Neymar case, forgetting to pay their taxes.

Of course, it takes two to tango and in Suarez they have a man who’ll dance to any tune so long as it suits him.

Liverpool and their fans have been mocked for being defenders of the indefensible when it comes to Suarez. But this time, among most of them, there’s little appetite to go on the defensive.

At best, the Chiellini bite was embarrassing, the justification excruciating, the late apology grovelling and the lack of consultation, or concern for the club that stood to pay him £3million for a four-month absence from football, was sobering.



To wise ears, that apology was more a legal statement on the “Anything else you would like to tell us about yourself” section of his Barcelona job application form (salary already agreed).

It sounded like a man who’d been caught in a brothel on a stag trip and instead of apologising to his wife, begged forgiveness from his mistress.

In an ideal world, Suarez would come out and apologise to Liverpool for letting them down, again, and being banned, again, and vow to honour the five-year contract he signed at Christmas.

Which he may be forced to do if Barcelona refuse to meet his get-out price.

But right now, all he offers are the familiar depressing noises about being let-down by the club (apparently, Brendan Rodgers offended him by saying he wasn’t missed during his lengthy suspension for biting Branislav Ivanovic) and how he needs to escape the persecution of the British media.

As far as Liverpudlians are concerned, for the second summer running he’s become the big brown floater that’s closed down the hotel swimming pool. And if he stays against his will again, the chances are it will happen next summer.

Do Liverpool really need to lower themselves, begging someone to stay who doesn’t want to be there?

They’re back in the Champions League, meaning the £80m they want for Suarez would give them a great chance of attracting three world-class players - unlike Spurs who weren’t able to fully exploit the Gareth Bale windfall because the top performers don’t want Thursday night football.

Suarez is a major reason they are back in Europe’s elite, which is why few Kopites will feel any lasting anger towards him if his release clause is met and he gets what he wants.



That’s all it’s about now for Liverpool - remembering the most sought-after striker in the world is under long-term contract to them. And playing hardball.

If those hip Catalans believe they are about to engage in a reality-changing, summer-long pow-wow that knocks his price down by £20m, it’s time for John Henry to step up to the plate again.

And ask them what kind of dope they’re smoking over there.

[leeroy74]

Liverpool should insist on selling him for at least 80M and don't let them have him for cheap.

Yeah that's the way... insist we get a player that actually doesn't want to play for us.  genius.

[Soupyzrx]

There's something in the back of my memory niggling at me. Perhaps one of you guys can enlighten me....

Did Barcelona not get done recently under the financial fair-play thing and end up with a transfer limit of £49M?
I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere, so I'm assuming I might've dreamt it or maybe I'm just plain wrong?

[woof woof !]

There's something in the back of my memory niggling at me. Perhaps one of you guys can enlighten me....

Did Barcelona not get done recently under the financial fair-play thing and end up with a transfer limit of £49M?
I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere, so I'm assuming I might've dreamt it or maybe I'm just plain wrong?

Your right mate

Earlier this year

Barcelona will appeal an imposed ban by FIFA preventing the club from making signings for two consecutive transfer windows after failing to abide by rules governing transfers of players under 18.

Club officials said they would appeal the heavy sanction, which covers the summer and January transfer windows and followed an investigation into the Spanish champions' signing of players under the age of 18 from 2009-13.

The punishment, which prevents Barcelona from signing any players until the summer of 2015, leaves recent agreements with Borussia Monchengladbach goalkeeper Marc-Andre Ter Stegen and Croatian teenager Alen Halilovic to join the club in July in limbo.

Barca appealed the decision, not sure what the current state of play is.

[ycsatbjywtbiastkamb]

There's something in the back of my memory niggling at me. Perhaps one of you guys can enlighten me....

Did Barcelona not get done recently under the financial fair-play thing and end up with a transfer limit of £49M?
I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere, so I'm assuming I might've dreamt it or maybe I'm just plain wrong?

I think they were actually banned from signing anyone for 2 years or something like that mate.
Barcelona appealed though.

[woof woof !]

Here you go

A week after the appeal was lodged

Mail online  Published: 10:39, 23 April 2014 | Updated: 12:40, 23 April 2014

Barcelona transfer ban suspended by FIFA with Catalans free to go on summer spree

Europe’s top clubs breathed a collective sigh of relief when FIFA suspended the transfer ban they had imposed on Barcelona, leaving them free to sign players this summer.

The Catalan club had been given the punishment for two windows for breaching rules on signing minors from overseas. They were sanctioned by FIFA's disciplinary committee on April 2 for breaking the rules in the case of 10 Under 18 players and were also fined 450,000 Swiss francs (£305,000).

Barcelona lodged a formal appeal last Friday and had urged the game’s governing body to reply as quickly as possible leaving them time to make a second appeal to the Court of Arbitration in Sport (CAS).

But FIFA have made that second appeal unnecessary by temporarily lifting the year-long ban while they review the case.

The decision means Barca can embark on a £100million overhaul of their squad which could see them take David Luiz from Chelsea and allow Alexis Sanchez and Cesc Fabregas to move to the Premier League.

A FIFA statement read: 'The chairman of the FIFA appeal committee considered that the appeal lodged by the club is to be granted suspensive effect.

'The chairman of the FIFA appeal committee, Larry Mussenden, took into consideration the sanctions imposed against the club, the complexity of the matter, the start date of the next registration period - 1 July 2014 - and the fact that the FIFA appeal committee does not seem in a position to take a decision on the main issue early enough so that an eventual appeal of the club against its decision before the Court of Arbitration for Sport would still be decided before the beginning of the next registration period.

'Consequently, the chairman considered that the appeal lodged by the club is to be granted suspensive effect.'

Some in European football will see this as a display of weakness from FIFA but others will be delighted that a potential spoke in the wheel of the summer transfer market has been removed.

Barcelona will now be able to register new players from July 1 and goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen will be the first. They will then embark on a major overhaul of their side with two defenders and a midfielder the priority.

Luiz features on the shortlist for central defenders with Athletic Bilbao’s Aymeric Laporte also high on the list. His current manager Ernesto Valverde is favourite to become Barcelona’s new coach.

Signings elsewhere in the team will depend on the players leaving with Carles Puyol having confirmed his departure at the end of the season, Xavi Hernandez considering a move to the US this summer, and Dani Alves, Fabregas and Sanchez all understood to be available at the right price.

The sanctions imposed on Barcelona highlighted the practices of clubs scouring the world for young talent and taking children from their home countries in defiance of FIFA's rules.

Barcelona currently have a trio of youth players from South Korea, including much sought-after 15-year-old striker Lee Seung Woo, plus other players from Africa

[Greavesie]

Certainly looking ominous in terms of getting Sanchez. I'm not sure it loks good for us to let Suarez go and be unable to lure a player of Sanchez' quality to the club. We've been linked with winger after winger but no names with regards to a centre forward stepping in to replace Suarez

We're hardly notorious for paying below the odds neither so I'm sceptical over who we're gonna get in with every club knowing we'll have £70m+ in the bank

[eds]

don't be a dunce. If there's a £75M cash offer on the table, as suggested. No club in their right mind would walk away from over 200% profit on a player because a player moving in the other direction doesn't happen.

Personally I think the 3rd best player in the world is worth more than 75m, but that's another debate altogether.

Whether we have 75m in our pocket for the sale or not, it won't make a difference in bringing in world class players and Sanchez is in that bracket.

As Yakka alluded to he is in a very small group of players who can come anywhere near close to filling the massive void Suarez will once he leaves and the fact that Sanchez doesn't want to come here speaks volumes about our current reputation in bringing in quality (from Europe and abroad) over the next few months.

I love this club to bits but at the end of the day I'm a realist and have never (and will never) buy into this blind faith lemming nonsense that everything will be OK, especially if Suarez does leave. If he leaves we need to make contingency plans on who we can get for 75m and how they will be spread across our starting XI. More importantly it needs to be on our terms, not Barcelona's. Henry and co. I'm sure would be on the same page right now, in principle we may have already agreed to sell him but that means nothing if we can't actually buy any quality for 75m, which I'm sure the club is hell bent on finding out over the next few days. That's my point and calling me a dunce if you disagree is rather irrelevant........

[eds]

Certainly looking ominous in terms of getting Sanchez. I'm not sure it loks good for us to let Suarez go and be unable to lure a player of Sanchez' quality to the club. We've been linked with winger after winger but no names with regards to a centre forward stepping in to replace Suarez

We're hardly notorious for paying below the odds neither so I'm sceptical over who we're gonna get in with every club knowing we'll have £70m+ in the bank

Thank-you Greavesie, highlighting exactly the point I'm trying to make in getting carried away on getting 75m into our bank balance.........

[stmichael]

For a start Sanchez hasn't spoken to anybody about going anywhere. His national team manager won't allow it. It's the London press that are typically putting it about that he prefers Arsenal when the truth is he's never ruled out a move to Liverpool. If anything it'll be his representatives that prefer him to move to Arsenal (the London factor), not the player himself. On a football level I don't see why Arsenal are a more attractive proposition than us at this moment in time.

[Santa]

There's something in the back of my memory niggling at me. Perhaps one of you guys can enlighten me....

Did Barcelona not get done recently under the financial fair-play thing and end up with a transfer limit of £49M?
I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere, so I'm assuming I might've dreamt it or maybe I'm just plain wrong?

The ban will only take effect next summer...so for more is hunting session for them

So taking into account Barca's failure last season and how much they need to have a marquee player to sign for them now before the ban,  we should have all the right cards in our hand in negotiation. We value Suarez at £80M if they manage to persuade Sanchez to replace him or we value Suarez at £85M straight cash deal. Don't let them low ball us they need Suarez more than we need the cash. Key them cough it out... after all they spent near £100M on Neymar last season

[ycsatbjywtbiastkamb]

For a start Sanchez hasn't spoken to anybody about going anywhere. His national team manager won't allow it. It's the London press that are typically putting it about that he prefers Arsenal when the truth is he's never ruled out a move to Liverpool. If anything it'll be his representatives that prefer him to move to Arsenal (the London factor), not the player himself. On a football level I don't see why Arsenal are a more attractive proposition than us at this moment in time.

Chile were knocked out by Brazil last week on pens. I doubt his national team manager has had any say in the matter for a while now mate.