Liverpool Agree £23m Fee For Luis Suarez – Will He Get Dalglish’s No.7 Shirt?

Ollie Irish

28th, January 2011

17 Comments

By Ollie Irish

“I am ready for the Premier League” – Luis had watched many Stevie G clips on YouTube

Liverpool’s hot pursuit of Ajax striker Luis Suarez looks to be over after they agreed a deal worth up to £22.8million.

The 24-year-old Uruguayan has yet to pass a medical and agree personal terms but he is so very close to being a Liverpool player, and it still looks possible that the sale of Nando Torres – who is still unsettled after the Hicks & Gillett affair, and reportedly keen to hear what Chelsea might offer LFC for his services – might fund the purchase of Suarez, and then some. However, I expect Torres to stay on Merseyside, in which case the sale of fringe players like Paul Konchesky will have to go into the pot.

The transfer is a bold statement of intent from John W Henry’s Fenway Sports Group that they are serious about dragging Liverpool back to football’s top table.

Suarez is certainly a class act, though he will need to cuts out the diving and histrionics that he sometimes gets away with in the Eredvisie. You can’t deny his scoring record at club level is impressive – he has scored 111 goals in 159 matches since joining Ajax in 2007, but I suspect he’ll find it a tad harder to score in the Premier League. Still, stacked next to the recent Darren Bent transfer, this qualifies as a decent punt by a club that desperately needed a marquee signing to pump up its deflated supporters. There is also talk Suarez will be handed the vacant No.7 shirt, as worn with distinction some years ago by a certain Kenneth Dalglish.

What do you make of the transfer? Objectively, £23m is about £8m over the odds for Suarez but in terms of the effect his purchase could have on LFC as a whole, it could be a steal.

… And I didn’t mention you-know-what once. Phew.

Obligatory overblown highlights package:

Posted in Liverpool, Transfers & Rumours

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17 Comments

  1. Jon says:

    Very much looking forward to seeing how the team will line up with two decent strikers. Who’ll get lopped out of midfield? I’d say Lucas, or possibly Maxi.
    Hope he helps out Torres a bit more that we are at the moment too.

  2. whatever whatever says:

    its a hit!

  3. Hicks Hater says:

    I think he’ll ever play as the second striker in which case he’d probably replace one of the 3 central midfielders or he’ll play on the right of a 3 which is Dirk Kuyt’s position. Kuyt obviously can play on the left if asked. So I don’t see any particular player being threatened by this. Against Stoke I would expect the following team:

    Reina– Kelly Skrtel Agger Johnson– Kuyt Meireles Gerrard Maxi– Suarez Torres

    Hopefully Torres will still be here cos I can’t wait to see those two working together.

  4. Pedro says:

    I actually think he’s a pretty good deal at £ 23 mil. Players from less reputed leagues are often derided because “it’s harder to score goals in the Premier League” (any data on the average number of goals vs. number of chances in the PL compared to other European leagues?) but the simple fact that teams in the PL usually have better quality defenders means jack all because of a certain gung ho, attacking element still very much present. We’ve seen this before with van Nistelrooy or Roy Mackay (though admittedly not so much with Huntelaar), so I’d say if you have that impressive a scoring record in the Eredivisie, chances are you will come up with the goods at a higher level.

  5. eamogomez says:

    cunt cunt cunt cunt handballing cunt

  6. Chris says:

    I’m wondering if the whole “Torres is discussing Chelsea’s bid” thing is really Torres forcing the new owners into spending the money and not being penny pinchers. Maybe it’s more about him threatening to walk because he has no faith in them trying to better the squad regardless of what it takes. And maybe this is a sign that his tactics worked. I hope it’s that kind of chess move rather than him really wanting to go to Chelsea.

  7. burgy says:

    that there is a quality player…good one scousers!

  8. Montesquieu says:

    Stepping stone to bigger and better Premiership clubs?

  9. PhilandoTorres says:

    I’d give him the no. 10 shirt, personally.

    By the way, Sky have really fucking pissed me off today. Regardless of the quality of the source, presenting Torres’ alleged request to hear Chelsea out as fact is just shoddy journalism. Though why would I expect anything else?

    Now we need a left winger (N’Zogbia?) and a train ticket for Konchesky.

  10. Anonymous says:

    Sorry but i think he’s not even close to being a class act..remember what he did in south africa?? He does anything to win, even hurting others

  11. Pedro says:

    The sanctimonious drivel continues. If a team player of mine in a five a side didn’t do what he did to win, I’d be fucking pissed. He knows what to do to win, is ready to sacrifice himself for the good of the team, etc… He broke the rules, got punished accordingly and that was the end of that. Should he have been thinking about poor Ghana rather than trying to win the fucking thing? Were he an English player in a World Cup final and I’m pretty sure everyone would be showering him with praise. In fact, you had no qualms with making the Portugal national side travel all the way from Liverpool to Wembley at the last minute in ’66, thereby giving you an advantage, but I’ve never seen anyone whine about how unsporting that was. Hypocritical sanctimonious bullshit. Get bent.

  12. jojo says:

    he is like an improved version of kuyt. hard-working, great technique and very goal driven. don’t expect a winger though, he is clearly a striker. his energetic style of play suits the premier league and liverpool. expect a tevez (lite). he dives and moans a lot, so I don’t think he will be loved by other fans.

    he is very unpredictable, which is both confusing for defenders and fellow attackers, so it could be hard for him to adapt to torres. he is a chaotic dribbler, you never know which way he goes.

    all in all: a great signing, but liverpool clearly overpaid. he has a great goal tally, but kezman (remember him?) and alves (middlesbrough) had too. even dirk kuyt was a goal threat in his time with feyenoord.

  13. Sup says:

    Well said pedro

  14. Hootie says:

    I think he’s a fine footballer, but the price seems high considering the whole “he seems a bit mentally unstable” factor. Re: The Ghana incident, I don’t see how a potential club would ever hold that against him. It’s sad that Ghana was ousted in such a way, but it’s hard to imagine Liverpool execs sitting around a conference table and arguing whether or not he’d be willing to sacrifice himself for the cause.

  15. alfie says:

    i’m certain this will go down well with their ghanian supporters

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