Before yesterday, if you'd asked any Liverpool fan if the club should look to sell Luis Suarez the answer would have been an easy no. There might have been rumours of potential bids from the likes of Real Madrid and Barcelona, but after going an entire season without any egregious on-pitch incidents and setting the standard as the world's on-form attacker, if given the choice of Suarez or a big bag of cash the near universal selection would have been Suarez.
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Now, it's not quite so straight forward. Having bitten—or at the very least having appeared to bite—the third opponent of his professional career, a fair few would happily take the big bag of cash and hope that Liverpool could make up for his talents on the pitch with a handful of players who, while not quite as spectacular as a Luis Suarez on his game, wouldn't be nearly as prone to the odd spectacular implosion.
Of course, now that big bag of cash almost certainly won't be on offer. Talk of a world record transfer fee to pry him away from Liverpool, after yesterday, is almost certainly done. It will be a knockdown price or nothing for Suarez, which rather changes the equation: Liverpool fans are likely more willing to see Suarez leave today, but any fee on offer won't come close to matching his talent as one of the world's top footballers.
One imagines that the likeliest outcome now is that Suarez will stay at Liverpool for another season—even if there's a chance he misbehaves and hurts the club at some point this season, what he brings to the side can't be replaced by the kind of knock-down fee he's likely to command. Still, if Real Madrid or Barcelona weren't scared off—if they came in tomorrow with a world record offer—how many would change their minds?
And for some, might the negatives that come with Suarez so far outweigh even his prodigious talents that they might think it best that Liverpool cut their losses, even if it means getting a reduced return on Suarez' talent and making it harder for the club to hold on to their top four and Champions League gains of last season? Or perhaps, even with the clear risk of another incident at the club level, Suarez remains irreplaceable?
Following yesterday's latest incident, let us know what you think by voting and, if you'd like, sharing your reasoning in the comments.