In perhaps the greatest example of needle from one club toward another we've seen in some time, Football Leaks revealed that Roberto Firmino's contract at Liverpool includes an anti-Arsenal clause, preventing him from moving to Arsenal for any amount of money. This merely formalises a process by which Liverpool have been living for years.
A couple of Liverpool's top players have strayed very close to a move to the Emirates, only for the deal to collapse thanks to Arsenal's famed parsimony. Xabi Alonso has been speaking about how close he was to joining the Gunners, and would have done had they coughed up an extra £3 million.
Luis Suarez too nearly joined, before the deal fell apart in farce: Arsenal bid a pound over his 40 million release clause, Steven Gerrard convinced Suarez to stay for a year before joining Barca or Madrid, and John Henry gleefully tweeted, "What are they smoking over there at the Emirates?"
Arsene Wenger has been speaking about the deal in an interview today with Bein Sports. The Arsenal manager claimed that Suarez had agreed to move to the Emirates, before reneging on the deal.
We had an agreement with the players and we had been wrongly advised that he had a clause.
You can ask the player. He will confirm that he wanted to join us.
Then they kept him one more year, improved his contract and promised to sell him to a club abroad.
Wenger was also asked about Suarez' behaviour on the field, and infamously short temper. The French manager is not enthused:
It’s not normal, you cannot accept that. He had some behaviours that were shocking. He deserved to be punished.
I think, as well, you don’t see them any more for the last two or three years. He got rid of all the things that were a handicap for him and you don’t see that any more.
He is still borderline in terms of what strikers do, going down in the box, but you want that from an intelligent striker.
