Luis Suarez has thanked his former Liverpool teammate Steven Gerrard for persuading him not to sign for Arsenal last summer.

Uruguay international Suarez came close to leaving Anfield for the Emirates Stadium after the Gunners attempted to trigger a 40 million-pound release clause in his contract.

But although the move did not eventually take place, with Liverpool not feeling they were legally obliged to sell, Suarez and his agents were reportedly close to taking legal action to force a move through.

The striker subsequently signed a new Liverpool contract and went on to score 31 Premier League goals last season as the Merseysiders came close to a first league title since 1990. He moved to Barcelona in a 75 million-pound deal this summer.

In quotes from his new autobiography, published in Sport, Suarez credits Liverpool skipper Gerrard with stopping him from joining a "lesser" club.

"It would have been a big error that I would have made had it not been for Steven Gerrard," he said. "We spoke about this when I went to Melwood [Liverpool's training ground] to pick up my things at the end of the summer and he said: 'You did the right thing, you waited until the best moment.'

"He had told me [the previous summer] to play well for Liverpool, give it another year and it will be Bayern Munich, Real Madrid or Barcelona coming for you and then you can go where you want, because you have the quality to play at any of those three clubs."

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Arsenal fans: Would you have rather had Suarez instead of Sanchez last summer (Keep in mind the ban) or stick with Sanchez?

Hmm. Pretty provocative stuff here. I wonder what would've happened had him & Wenger met at Arsenal.

Isn't this old, what's the point? Suarez said this ages ago, sometimes i think people create threads just to get some tension going.