Spurs could have signed world class Uruguayan.Tottenham Hotspur could have signed former Liverpool star Luis Suarez while he was still at Ajax, according to their former manager Harry Redknapp, the Daily Mail reports.
The Uruguayan international only left the Reds this summer as he made the £75m switch to Barcelona, having established himself as the best player in the Premier League and one of the best in the world in the last few years.
Suarez first caught the eye in Holland with Ajax, and eventually joined Liverpool in a £22.8m move in January 2011, but Redknapp has now revealed in his new book, A Man Walks On To a Pitch, that he had earlier looked at bringing the player to Tottenham.
However, Spurs scouts supposedly reported that Suarez was not an out-and-out centre-forward, meaning Redknapp looked elsewhere for a new signing upfront.
“One of the biggest regrets of my life in management is not taking Luis Suarez to Tottenham when we had the chance,” he said.
“You’ve got to take him, Harry,’ Ruud Gullit told me. ‘He’s fantastic.’
“Yet all of our scouts’ reports said that at Ajax he played wide off a striker, whereas we were looking for a proper front man.
“Just when I was on the verge of taking the plunge, the price went up. In the end he was sold for £22.8million to Liverpool. We wouldn’t have paid that.”
The 67-year-old, now in charge of Queens Park Rangers, also claims that Spurs could have signed former Arsenal midfielder Patrick Vieira while he was still at Inter Milan, though he opted to stay in Italy before later joining Manchester City.
The Frenchman is considered a Gunners legend, but was supposedly perfectly happy to join their north London rivals.
“Patrick Vieira was a different type of midfield player and one every club would like to take now. He almost came to me at Tottenham from Inter Milan,” he added.
“I thought it was an incredible decision by him, after he’d been such a hero at Arsenal.
“In the end, his circumstances changed and he decided to stay in Italy. By the time he did become available — the following January — our needs had changed and Manchester City snapped him up.”