Pep Guardiola recently said Manchester City wanted to sign a striker this summer to accompany Sergio Aguero and Gabriel Jesus but couldn’t afford a player on their level.
Luis Suarez was available from Barcelona, however, and went on to join Atletico Madrid until 2022 for only £5.5m, so should we have signed him as cover?
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Aguero and Jesus are currently injured, so Guardiola will be forced to use one of Raheem Sterling, Ferran Torres, Riyad Mahrez and Bernardo Silva in a makeshift role.
Suarez would have been a useful option at centre-forward, however, as he has a playing style not too dissimilar from what Guardiola likes in his strikers – high levels of industry, good movement off the ball, quick feet and a lot of creativity.
The 33-year-old isn’t the same player that scored 82 goals and made 47 assists in 133 games for Liverpool, but he bagged 195 goals and made 113 assists for 283 games for Barcelona and has been in fine form at Atleti (six appearances, four goals, one assist).
Barcelona considered Jesus as a successor to Suarez this summer, so they view the two as having similar traits. Guardiola was linked with a move for the Uruguayan international upon his arrival as manager in 2016 too, so he was on our radar previously.
It remains to be seen if Suarez would be happy playing second fiddle to Aguero and Jesus, let alone playing for an English club that isn’t Liverpool, but we should have tried to convince him rather than not signing anybody.