Aston Villa want to sign Luis Suarez from Atletico Madrid but Spanish football expert Terry Gibson doubts whether the veteran forward is capable of shining in the Premier League, speaking to El Tel and Jon’s La Liga Weekly podcast.
Give Suarez a chance, in and around the penalty area, and you can expect the net to bulge.
But ask him to run the channels, press from the front or link the play and, well, it’s be like asking Linford Christie to come out of retirement and race for Britain at the next Olympics.
Suarez, his Atletico contract expiring in July, is no longer the irrepressible force of old. Perhaps that is to be expected. The Uruguayan is 35 after all.
But it’s not exactly uncommon, at least in the modern game, to see iconic centre-forwards defy the laws of time. Robert Lewandowski (33), Ciro Immobile (32) and Karim Benzema (34) are currently taking up the gold, silver and bronze positions in the race for the European Golden Boot after all.
But Gibson fears that, while Lewandowski, Benzema and co look fitter, stronger and more ruthless than ever before, the same cannot be said of Suarez.
Will Aston Villa sign Luis Suarez from Atletico Madrid?
“Age catches up with some players. That burst of pace has gone,” says Gibson, who describes Suarez – with some justification as – ‘one of the best all-time strikers in world football’.
“He had some knee issues, six or seven years ago at Barcelona, and I don’t think he’s ever been the same since. He’s in great shape but sometimes your body just doesn’t cope if you’ve got a chronic injury.”
It was all too easy to scoff at suggestions that Suarez could reunite with former Liverpool team-mates Philippe Coutinho and Steven Gerrard at Aston Villa. A classic case of ‘two-plus-two-equals-ridiculous transfer rumour’.
It seems there is some truth to all this tittle-tattle, however, with reports in Spain claiming that Gerrard called Suarez a couple of months ago in an attempt to lure the 2015 Champions League winner back to England.
“He’s not gonna be cheap. I think he’d be hard pressed to find someone to take him, to be perfectly honest,” Gibson adds. “Could he play on a regular basis in the Premier League? I don’t think so, I really don’t.
“I think the clubs who could sign him need a mobile, dynamic centre-forward that can get about the pitch. He could probably play for Man City and do a job back at Liverpool, as a player that finishes off all the good attacking play, but they’re not gonna buy him.
“Aston Villa have been linked. But they have mobile and dynamic forwards. He doesn’t want to go somewhere and sit on the bench. He wants to go somewhere and play but that’s gonna be hard, I think.”
Suarez still scored 34 goals in 82 games for Atletico Madrid, firing Diego Simeone’s side to La Liga glory just 12 months ago.
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