On This Day In 2013, Arsenal Bid £40 Million + £1 For Luis Suarez

On this day in 2013, Arsenal lodged a £40 million + £1 bid for Luis Suarez, which led Liverpool owner John W. Henry to tweet his utter bewilderment at the offer.

So what is the story behind this bizarre moment?

Wenger and the Arsenal board were under the impression he was available for £40 million thanks to a release clause in his contract, and proceeded to lodge a cheeky bid of £40,000,001.

Of course, the bid annoyed the Liverpool hierarchy, who quickly denied any release clause existed before the Reds' owner John W. Henry took to Twitter to mock the Gunners personally.

What a post.

The whole ordeal is regarded as one of the biggest transfer embarrassments in Premier League history and until Wenger spoke about the incident, we never fully understood how it all went down.

The former Arsenal boss gave his own version of events surrounding the club's farcical bid to sign Suarez, claiming the Uruguayan striker had actually agreed to move to north London.

Speaking to BeIN Sports, the Frenchman explained: "He was very close (to signing for Arsenal). We had an agreement with the player.

"We had been wrongly advised that he had a clause, with a minimal clause, but we had an agreement with the player.

"They kept him one more year, improved his contract and promised to sell him the year later to a club abroad.

"He had some behaviours that were shocking but I think as well you don't see them anymore since two, three years.

"He got rid of all the things that were a handicap for him and today you don't see that anymore. He's still on borderline with what the strikers do well, you know, go down in the penalty box but you want that from an intelligent striker.

"Overall I think he got rid of all the rest and rightly so and he deserved to be punished before and now you don't even expect it anymore from him."

Of course, Suarez did depart a year later, with Barcelona forking out around £70 million for his signature - almost double the £40 million Arsenal tried to prise him away for.

But what do you make of Wenger's comments? How good would Arsenal have been if the deal had gone through?

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Topics: Liverpool, Football News, Football, Luis Suarez, Arsenal

Jack Kenmare

Jack Kenmare is a writer at SPORTbible. He's interviewed some of the biggest names in sport, including Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Pele, Carles Puyol and Tim Henman. He dabbles in all things sport but football is his biggest passion. He was once hit in the head by a wayward strike from Nicky Butt and lived to tell the tale.

@jackkenmare_