Most insulting transfer offers at each ‘big six’ club – Man Utd’s joint bid to Arsenal stunt

There’s usually a bit of wiggle room when clubs are negotiating big-money transfers, but the big six have occasionally pushed the boundaries to an embarrassing degree

The summer transfer window has kicked into gear, with bids flying in left, right and centre. Arsenal are pushing forward with a £50million move for Chelsea winger Noni Madueke after hitting a wall in talks with Sporting CP for Viktor Gyokeres.

Their north London rivals Tottenham have sealed the £55m arrival of Mohammed Kudus. And Manchester United are still yet to reach an agreement with Brentford for Bryan Mbeumo.

With seven weeks left before deadline day, there’s plenty of time to negotiate down asking prices. After all, you don’t get if you don’t ask.

However, some clubs have taken that mantra a little too far in the past, resulting in some insulting bids. Here, Mirror Football look at the big six’s most embarrassing offers.

Arsenal – Luis Suarez

Where else can you start but with Arsenal’s laughable £40m+£1 stunt. After hearing about a supposed release clause in Luis Suarez’s Liverpool contract, the Gunners submitted an offer that was one Great British pound over the sum in order to activate it in 2013.

They were left with egg on their face when it turned out that it only required a potential move to be merely discussed, and wasn’t a fully-fledged release clause. The bid was therefore swiftly rejected.

It was much to the humour of Reds owner John W. Henry, whose iconic tweet remains on the platform, now X, to this day: “What do you think they’re smoking over there at Emirates?” Suarez, meanwhile, was convinced to commit to Anfield for another year by Steven Gerrard, before joining Barcelona in a £75m deal the following year.

Chelsea – Luka Modric

Doing business with one of your closest and fiercest rivals is never going to be straightforward, and there’s often going to be an extra charge compared to if the player is being sold abroad. But Chelsea went the other way when they made a very cheeky attempt to sign Luka Modric from Spurs in 2011.

They opened with a bid of £22m for Modric, who’d moved to White Hart Lane from Dinamo Zagreb for £16.6m three years earlier. His boss Harry Redknapp fumed: “That is ridiculous. There are people being sold for £20m who are not fit to lace Luka’s boots.”

Stamford Bridge chiefs did respond by upping their offer. But they were unable to hijack Real Madrid’s move 12 months later, with the Croatian heading to the Spanish capital for around £30m – a sum that proved to be a steal.

Liverpool – Clint Dempsey

Clint Dempsey was coming off the season of his life in the summer of 2012 having scored 23 goals and registered seven assists in all competitions for Fulham. So you can forgive them for not rolling over when Liverpool came calling to the tune of just £3m.

The Reds were very much in the midst of their banter era and their refusal to go any further than £4m once again left their rivals laughing at them. Although they did maybe dodge something of a bullet.

Dempsey ultimately joined Spurs on deadline day for £6m. A return of 12 goals and seven assists was respectable enough, but he headed home to his native USA after just one season to join Seattle Sounders.

Man Utd – Marouane Fellaini and Leighton Baines

Perhaps this should have been taken as a sign of things to come… United have been quite frankly tragic in the transfer market for over a decade, dating back to Sir Alex Ferguson’s departure.

When David Moyes took the reins, he was keen to bring with him some of Everton’s most prized assets. His former club were in no mood to help him out when they received a £28m offer – for both Marouane Fellaini and Leighton Baines!

“Those bids were immediately rejected out of hand as derisory and insulting,” a spokesperson for the Toffees slammed. It says it all about United’s transfer nous that they then signed just Fellaini on deadline day for just £500k less than the joint bid.

Man City – Lionel Messi

While all of the above have been intentionally insulting, Manchester City can be slightly excused here on the basis that they accidentally bid £30m for Lionel Messi. Although it does make it all the more embarrassing on their part.

Former City executive Garry Cook explained the mix-up in ‘The Manchester City Years’ by Gary James. Sheikh Mansour had just completed his £210m takeover of the club in August 2009, with chiefs – located in Manchester, London and Abu Dhabi – scrambling to sign a forward before the window slammed shut.

After failed swoops for Fernando Torres and Dimitar Berbatov, Cook explained: “He (an executive) made a comment like, ‘It’s all getting messy.’ Via the telephones and other communication lines, this somehow translated into, ‘Get Messi.’ An offer was made for Lionel Messi of about £30million. Needless to say, it was rejected.”

Tottenham – James Maddison and Harvey Barnes

Cherry picking a relegated club’s top talent is always a fun exercise for the Premier League’s big boys, who know full well the selling club are bent over a barrel. But there’s still a line – and Spurs well and truly crossed that two years ago.

Leicester City had one of the most stacked squads a relegated Premier League team has ever seen, and James Maddison and Harvey Barnes were both destined for big moves. £50m for both of them, however, was never going to fly.

Maddison did end up signing on the ever-shameless Daniel Levy’s dotted line, but he cost £40m alone, while Newcastle signed Barnes for £38m. Hey, you were nearly two thirds of the way there lads.

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