Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers has told Arsenal their £40,000,001 bid for Luis Suarez is nowhere near the player’s value.
Suarez will be allowed to hold talks with the Gunners after the offer, made on Tuesday, triggered a clause in his contract.
Liverpool, though, maintain that the clause does not oblige them to sell the 26-year-old at that price and have rejected the bid. Rodgers suggested last week that Suarez is as valuable as Edinson Cavani, who joined Paris Saint-Germain for €64 million (£55 million) on July 16.
The Anfield manager told the Liverpool Echo:
“If Arsenal want the player, then they have to produce the value for the player. There was an offer a few weeks ago of £35 million and, two weeks later, it is now £40,000,001. I don’t think it is anywhere near the value of what he is worth.
“It is two-fold, really. A player may want to go, but then somebody has to pay the value or worth of that player.”
Suarez’s agent Pere Guardiola disagrees with club believing that the clause in his contract will allow him to move on following Arsenal’s bid.
However, when asked about the contract, Rodgers insisted that Liverpool are only obliged to inform Suarez of any offers over £40 million.
“Absolutely,” he said. “That’s it. There’s nothing more than that.”
Two interesting things in this continuing saga. One is that Liverpool have changed their position on Suarez, from he is going nowhere, to you can have him for £50m. That indicates that the deal will get done.
The second is this contract clause. Liverpool and Guardiola disagree on its meaning and who is right? Who got the better of the other one in the negations last summer when Suarez signed his latest contract? And if Suarez does not get sold, how will he feel knowing that in his mind Liverpool should have sold him once a £40m bid had been received?
