Luis Suárez

[Slinky Skills]

I'm not sure but if you repeat that sentence with an awful pun I'm sure he'll be along in no time.

Barca are cheeky ****ers, they can get ****ed.

Try doubling that offer before we start speaking you ****ing monkeys.

[Gray]

Hopefully Ian blew out of there like Boon

[Roboklopp]

You guys know this is a negotiation right? Of course their opening offer will be low.

There's low & there's taking the piss.

[brightred]

Ah!! Let's go in at 200mill then!

That will sort the ****ers.

[Vermilion]

You guys know this is a negotiation right? Of course their opening offer will be low.

Ayre has been told Suarez value is Non negotiable.He's been told to sit across the table and hold up a card with '£100 million' on it, and say nothing!

[Chazza]

Liverpool hold 'productive' talks with Barcelona as they seek £75m deal for Suarez

ECHO understands that the discussions were amicable and more talks are set to take place over the coming week

Luis Suarez's Anfield exit has moved a step closer after Liverpool FC held “productive” talks with Barcelona over a potential £75million deal.

Reds chief executive Ian Ayre opened negotiations with a delegation from the Spanish giants in London on Wednesday.

The ECHO understands that the discussions were amicable and more talks are set to take place over the coming week.

Barcelona's initial offer of around £60million fell well short of the Reds' demands of around £75million but it looks increasingly likely that an agreement will be reached.

An Anfield source said: “The talks were productive with sensible expectations on both sides.

“Further talks and discussions will take place in due course. Nothing is finalised as of now.”

Ayre reminded Barcelona that Suarez is under contract until 2018 and made it clear that the prolific Uruguayan will only be sold on Liverpool's terms.

Despite the 27-year-old's four-month ban from all football following his bite on Italy's Giorgio Chiellini, Anfield officials are adamant that if Suarez does go it will be for a fee that reflects his worth.

The Reds were prepared to keep last season's Footballer of the Year and give him the help he needed in the wake of his shameful conduct at the World Cup.

However, Barcelona's approach – coupled with the player's desire to move to the Nou Camp and take advantage of the release clause in the lucrative contract he penned last December – led to them reluctantly agreeing to kick-start negotiations.

Boss Brendan Rodgers is determined to ensure there is no protracted transfer saga which disrupts the club's pre-season preparations.

During Wednesday's talks in the capital, Liverpool informed the Barca delegation, which included their director of football management Raul Sanllehi, that they would accept £30million rated Chilean attacker Alexis Sanchez plus around £45million for Suarez.

However, the ECHO understands that securing the services of Sanchez isn't a deal breaker in the Suarez negotiations.

Sanchez is currently considering his options with reports in Spain suggesting he favours a move to Arsenal.

Liverpool would accept a straight cash offer for Suarez with Rodgers then given those funds to strengthen his ranks ahead of the 2014/15 campaign.

Barca president Jose Maria Bartomeu has continued the club's public courting of the Reds' frontman by praising him for his apology to Chiellini.

“Luis has apologised and that is honourable, he said.

“He’s taken a step towards rehabilitating. The football world should support him and help him.

“Admitting you have done something wrong is very important. As a football fan I hope he can turn a corner.”

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/liverpool-fc-hold-productive-talks-7362550

[Roboklopp]

Laters then.

[Chazza]

Going to happen isn't it

[Chris]

Looks like it. Dont want him to go but would be excited to see what Godgers could do with the money, plenty of quality young talent out there he could mould in to the next best players in the world, they do all seem number 10 or widemen types though. Thats my only worry, cant think of many obvious strikers to sign, perhaps we could go for someone "decent" like a Mandzukic or Huntelaar and overload on the quality attacking mids/widemen until a better option comes up as even without Suarez we've still got one of the best strikers in Europe here.

[Gibbo]

Wonder if Barca will buy Coates too to be his mate.

[Chazza]

Barrett

[marcus50bucks]

Barcelona close in on Luis Suárez with £70m cash bid to Liverpool

• London meeting described as ‘productive’ by Liverpool
• Liverpool request Alexis Sánchez is included in deal

Andy Hunter
The Guardian, Wednesday 2 July 2014 22.38 BST

Luis Suárez is close to sealing his preferred move to Barcelona after the Catalan club held a “productive” first meeting with Liverpool and offered around £70m for the controversial forward.

Barcelona’s determination to clinch a deal for the Uruguayan was confirmed during talks between their director of football management, Raul Sanllehi, and Liverpool’s chief executive, Ian Ayre, in London on Wednesday. Rather than seek a drastically reduced fee for a player banned for four months for biting the Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini at the World Cup, Sanllehi’s opening bid was in the region of £70m.

The fee falls short of Liverpool’s initial £80m valuation, and has not been accepted, but both sides appear convinced a deal can be done after their face-to-face negotiations over the 27-year-old. Barcelona are believed to be willing to pay a straight cash sum for Suárez or to include Alexis Sánchez as a makeweight, as Liverpool had requested.

However, the Chile international has given no indication he wants to move to Anfield and Suárez’s transfer is unlikely to be concluded until the winger has decided whether to join Liverpool, another European club or to stay at Camp Nou.

A second round of talks has not been scheduled but negotiations will continue over the coming days, with Liverpool close to getting their asking price for Suárez after cordial and constructive talks with the delegation from Barcelona. A Liverpool source said: “The talks were productive. There were sensible expectations on both sides and there will be further discussions to take place. But nothing is finalised as of now.”

Suárez is banned following the bite on Chiellini, subject to an appeal from the Uruguay football association, but a transfer is allowed in that period.

Liverpool will now await an answer from Sánchez, and hold further dialogue with Sanllehi, before finalising the terms of Suárez’s long-held desire to move to a Spanish club. His wife’s family are based in Barcelona and that has influenced his preference to join a rebuilding job under Luís Enrique rather than a move to the European champions, Real Madrid.

Suárez signed a contract extension until 2018 worth £200,000 a week with Liverpool in December, albeit with a release clause designed to eradicate the problems that erupted over his thwarted attempt to sign for Arsenal 12 months ago. The latest controversy surrounding the striker and his ban, one that would suspend the striker from the first 13 matches of Liverpool’s season, has not reduced the Anfield club’s price tag on the striker and Barcelona accepted that stance during the meeting with Ayre.

The Barcelona president, Josep Maria Bartomeu, continued his club’s flattery of Suárez on Wednesday when praising the forward for publicly apologising for biting the Italy defender despite his initial claim to Fifa that he fell into Chiellini teeth-first.

Following tributes from the sporting director, Andoni Zubizarreta, on Tuesday, Bartomeu said: “He [Suárez] did something that wasn’t right so it’s the responsibility of everyone in football, be it Liverpool or anywhere else, to remember that he has said sorry. Admitting you have done something wrong is very important.

“Luis has apologised and that is honourable, he’s taken a step towards rehabilitating, the football world should support him and help him. As a football fan I hope he can turn a corner.”

As for Barcelona’s interest in Suárez, the president added: “I announced months ago that the team would undergo a deep renovation but we cannot reveal details because we don’t want to give clues away to any of our rivals. Our representatives are constantly travelling to other countries because of potential signing.

“Suárez is a Liverpool player so I can’t talk about him, he belongs to another team, a rival team. But we are all football men, and saying sorry is honourable, it helps the competition.”

Liverpool have spent £40m this summer on Adam Lallana, Rickie Lambert and Emre Can, have deals lined up for Divock Origi and Lazar Markovic, and Brendan Rodgers hopes to reinforce his defence with Dejan Lovren and Ryan Bertrand.

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/jul/02/luis-suarez-liverpool-barcelona-70m

[tanner]

Adios Chompy.

[Slinky Skills]

Chompy! Ah ha ha ha!! 😂 Chompy mcchompy chomps.

[dom9]

Luis Suarez has served his purpose at Liverpool and should be allowed to join Barcelona
Luis Suarez's ‘apology’ has at least shown his true motives and even Liverpool’s biggest fans should be glad to see him go

By Paul Hayward, Chief Sports Writer
10:47PM BST 01 Jul 2014

Those bangs in the attic of this World Cup are Luis Suárez trying to get out of England. If the title had not been claimed already for a book about Lord Lucan, “Trail of Havoc” would be an appropriate epitaph for his time at Liverpool.

Suárez has served his purpose: he helped to rescue Liverpool from the Europa League zone, or worse. Thank you and good night. Aside from the goals and the mesmerising movement, which speaks of amazing cunning, he has no place with Gianfranco Zola, Dennis Bergkamp or Thierry Henry in the pantheon of foreign players to have graced the Premier League. Remove emotion and every car on Merseyside would fire up to take him to the airport for his flight to Barcelona.

Hang on, you cry. Did the Footballer Writers’ Association not elect him footballer of the year only in May? That vote, which needs to be detached from the old “precept and example” caveat to avoid contradictions such as this one, was a straightforward endorsement for the best player in England in 2013-14. To declare an interest, I missed the ballot deadline, through incompetence, but agreed that Suárez could hardly be denied the award on the basis of generalised moral disdain, given that he had served his time for his offences.

He remained, however, a diver and a thespian from a Latin American street culture where English high-mindedness is often rightly laughed out of court.

But the monumental dishonesty of his initial denial and then semi-apology here in Brazil was more significant than the bite on Giorgio Chiellini. It showed him not to be a troubled soul who needs “help”. He is a man of infinite low calculation who will take any measure necessary to protect his own self-interest.

We can say this without anger, or outrage, or even caring very much. These are mere notes in the margins of his character. If a Cameroon Football Association investigation into possible match fixing unearths evidence of corruption in the group stages here then Suárez’s teeth colliding with Chiellini’s shoulder (the original explanation) will read like a skirmish at a six-year-olds’ party. But the rush to compare every offence – biting, butting, violent tackling, elbowing – in the quest to get Suárez off the hook only obscured his Machiavellian handling of the fallout.

For that reason, the craven “apology” and subsequent praise from Barcelona’s sporting director, Andoni Zubizarreta, were moments of welcome clarity. They rendered the whole game transparent, and gave Liverpool fans the reason they need to abandon their all-out defensive posture.

Nobody in football doubts that Suárez cost Kenny Dalglish his job, which puts a never-ending twist on the desperation of some Liverpool supporters to defend him, even after the farce in Brazil. Stick up for the man who brought King Kenny down?

Suárez has atoned for it since, some might say. And nobody forced Dalglish to print those T-shirts defending him in the Patrice Evra racial abuse case – or to excuse his refusal to shake Evra’s hand at Old Trafford (despite being told to). This is not old ground. It is a reminder of the delusion we slip into when we turn footballers into gods.

The loyalists who closed ranks around Suárez after the Chiellini biting fiasco will surely turn on him when he signs for Barcelona. This indignation-mode is based on the old idea that an attack on a Liverpool player is an attack on the whole of Liverpool FC, their history and traditions.

Dalglish, who doubtless felt he was being loyal and honourable, fell into this trap during the Evra racial abuse case, in which Suárez was found guilty. The embarrassment it caused spread all the way to Boston, where John Henry’s Fenway Sports Group went looking for a new manager.

It may be a columnist’s cliche, but nobody from this third biting scandal emerges with much credit, except perhaps Fifa, which ignored the rantings of the Uruguay federation and manager Oscar Tabarez to make the point that Suárez had clearly not been deterred by the first two suspensions for chomping. The risible conspiracy theories constructed around the perpetrator also undermined the case for mercy.

Suárez is a master at exploiting desperation. Liverpool needed a world-class talent to lift them back into the Champions League places and indulged him to that end. He repaid them with a dazzling season.

Barcelona have fallen behind Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid as the tiki-taka era fades. Football-wise, Suárez is just what they need: an elusive runner, finisher and creator. The game has moved on and Suárez will help Barcelona to catch up.

Liverpool can move on too, under Brendan Rodgers, if they spend wisely and avoid being taken hostage ever again by the talent of one player. And the World Cup, you will have noticed, is fine without him.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/players/luis-suarez/10938990/Luis-Suarez-has-served-his-purpose-at-Liverpool-and-should-be-allowed-to-join-Barcelona.html

Haywards makes some obvious points but he's still a tool.