Harry Redknapp reveals he tried to sign Luis Suarez for Tottenham

Posted Thursday, October 09, 2014 by theguardian.com

· He says Spurs were priced out of a deal for the Uruguay striker
· Missing out on him is ‘one of the biggest regrets of my career’

Harry Redknapp reveals he tried to sign Luis Suarez for Tottenham
Harry Redknapp says Ruud Gullit advised him to sign Luis Suarez for Tottenham.

Harry Redknapp has revealed that he had the chance to sign Luis Suarez in 2011 while he was Tottenham Hotspur manager.

“Despite all that has happened in his career since, one of the biggest regrets of my life in management is not taking Luis Suárez to Tottenham when we had the chance,” he added. “‘You’ve got to take him, Harry,’ Ruud Gullit told me. ‘He’s fantastic.”’

Redknapp said that he was initially unsure about Suarez but when he decided to sign him the asking price became a problem for Tottenham and the Uruguay international moved from Ajax to Liverpool instead.

Redknapp, whose book A Man Walks On To a Pitch is being serialised in the Daily Mail, said: “Just when I was on the verge of taking the plunge, the price went up. In the end he was sold for £22.8m to Liverpool. We wouldn’t have paid that.”

Now the manager of QPR, Redknapp also revealed that he had come close to taking Patrick Vieira to White Hart Lane in 2009. The former Arsenal player was at Internazionale when Redknapp tried to persuade him to join Spurs.

Redknapp said: “I met him at his house in Hampstead and he had no fear about what people would think or what reception he would get. He had enough confidence in his ability to just brush it away.

“I remember talking to Daniel Levy, our chairman, about him. He said the crowd would be hostile. I knew that – but if he had enough bottle to want to put on our white shirt after all that had gone before, I thought it said something about the man.”

In the end though, Vieira decided to stay at Inter for a few months before moving to Manchester City in January 2010.