Oh no!
Get Suarez! City WILL bid for the Liverpool star in the winter window
Manchester City will launch an audacious £40million bid for Luis Suarez in January.
Premier League champions City are ready to offer a massive show of strength in the title race with a stunning attempt to prise away Liverpools main asset.
They will, of course, face stiff resistance from the Reds, who know that losing their talismanic striker would be a body blow.
But City manager Roberto Mancini wants to make a statement of intent as he looks to reinforce his position at the club, amid suggestions that he now needs to win the title again to keep his job.
Mancini will start that process by allowing controversial striker Mario Balotelli to leave when the transfer window opens in January, and he will immediately attempt to invest those funds in Suarez.
The Italian boss has already sounded out Atletico Madrid over their highly rated striker Radamel Falcao, who has a £48m release clause in his contract.
But the Colombian superstar has hinted he would prefer a move to Chelsea.
So Mancini will instead attempt to shore up his increasingly precarious position with a move for Suarez, even though he knows Liverpool will fight to keep him.
Liverpool paid Ajax £24m for the striker, who has carried the team almost single-handedly this season, in January 2011, and if the money on the table gets towards double that figure they would have difficulty turning it down.
Realistically, City will open the bidding at around the £40m mark, but that will represent merely the opening skirmishes, and if the Manchester clubs power brokers decide to back their manager, then the figure is more likely to rise towards £50m.
That is the fee that Chelsea eventually paid for Fernando Torres when they snatched him from Liverpool in the same transfer window that took Suarez to Anfield, and a profit of £26m would give first-year Reds boss Brendan Rodgers the funds he needs to rebuild the squad.
Rodgers has admitted that he requires at least three or four new faces to turn Liverpool around.
Selling Suarez, hailed by Kop team-mate Jamie Carragher this week as the Prem's best player, would give him the finance to do that - although he would need to balance any sale of the Uruguayan against the massive impact it would have on his team.
Liverpools position in any negotiations will be strengthened by the fact that Suarez only signed a new four-year contract in August, taking his salary to £120,000 but City could comfortably extend that deal.
Rodgers desperately needs more striking options - Suarez is the only fit senior striker at the club, after Andy Carroll was loaned to West Ham for the season and Fabio Borini was injured last month, but has responded by becoming the Premier Leagues top scorer.
The striker himself has told Rodgers he wants to stay at Liverpool long term, and when he signed a new deal last summer he explained to the Anfield faithful: I hope to play for many years here. This is a great team and everyone around the world knows Liverpool.
ooops LFC have 3 starting players in that team Ooohooo ....