Arsenal boss Wenger admits THAT bid for Liverpool's Luis Suarez ''wasn't most subtle thing we've ever done''

Je regret that: Wenger concedes £40,000,001 offer wasn't Arsenal at their best

Arsene Wenger has admitted Arsenal’s calculated £40,000,001 summer bid for Liverpool striker Luis Suarez was provocative.

On the eve of the Reds' first-versus-third visit to the Emirates, Gunners boss Wenger make a frank admission about his club’s summer pursuit of the Uruguayan, conceding: “It was not the most subtle thing we have ever done.”

Arsenal made the bid in July believing it would trigger a release clause in Suarez’s contract - but the advice they were given proved misplaced.

The affair produced a stinging rebuke from Liverpool's American co-owner John W Henry, who tweeted angrily: “What do you think they are smoking over there at the Emirates?”

Wenger retorted, “We don’t smoke” - before dissolving into laughter when reminded that the Gunners' midfielder Jack Wilshere had been pictured having a crafty fag outside a nightclub last month.

Asked if he had been badly advised on the approach for Suarez, Wenger said: “I’m very happy with what I did.

“There again, the details will maybe come out one day - maybe not in my book, but somebody else’s book!

“I know only one side of the story, but we always had fair relations with Liverpool, we kept in touch over that period. It was not meant to be provocative at all - it could be interpreted like that, but it was not our purpose.

Suarez is off to the Emirates... Arsenal's £40m target will arrive on Saturday

“Did he want to join us? I do not want to dwell any more on that situation - it was one of the transfers that did not work. He is a professional, he plays for Liverpool, he is paid by them.

“I don’t know how our crowd will react tomorrow, but for us the most important thing is how we play, not how Suarez plays.

“I have no regrets about not signing players who go on to perform well at other clubs.

“Life is about opportunities - some you miss, some you take - but we have a squad that is good enough to beat Liverpool.”

Wenger deflected any remote prospect of Arsenal renewing their interest in Suarez when the transfer window opens in 60 days, adding: “I’m not focused on that now.

"What is important for me, 24 hours before the game, is that I believe Olivier Giroud has proved, since the start of the season, that he is an exceptional striker and he will be up for it to show that again.”

Suarez wanted to quit Anfield in the summer, believing he would be allowed to talk to clubs who offered Liverpool in excess of £40m.

But the Reds held firm, and since his return from a 10-match ban for biting Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic, Suarez has plundered six goals in just four Premier League games.

Wenger will be bidding to avert a hat-trick of home defeats in three different competitions  but insists Arsenal ARE title contenders, not pretenders.

After an undeserved Champions League setback against Borussia Dortmund and a much-changed team's lukewarm Capital One Cup exit in midweek, this top-of-the-table date with Liverpool is a serious test of the Gunners’ title credentials.

With Theo Walcott and Lukas Podolski injured, and Nicklas Bendtner’s barren scavenging against Chelsea amounting to a farewell testimonial, much of Wenger’s firepower will be invested in eight-goal striker Olivier Giroud.

But as the Gunners come up against the Kop’s keystone double act of Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge, Wenger insists Arsenal can handle their home truths.

Not since 1987, when they lost to Tottenham (in a League Cup semi-final first leg), Liverpool (League) and Watford (FA Cup quarter-final) have Arsenal suffered three defeats in as many different competitions in consecutive home games.

Defeat this evening would send more than a nation’s Guy Fawkes bonfires up in smoke, but Wenger claimed: “I don’t believe we are vulnerable at home. Against Dortmund, (Wojciech) Szczesny had zero saves to make and the other night against Chelsea we basically gave the game away after an early mistake.

“It is too early to ask whether those defeats will make the players question themselves. What we want first is to convince everybody that we can play at the top.

“Then, hopefully, in April we can ask ourselves if we have got enough resources to get over the line.”

So how damaging would three setbacks in a row at the Emirates prove in Arsenal’s campaign? Le Professeur recoiled at the prospect, saying: “Just your question is damaging - the question is trying to kill me!

“But of course it is important - this is a big game for us in a completely different competition and we want to respond well. I cannot deny it was a disappointment to lose on Tuesday, but we want to respond in a strong way in a competition where we are in a strong position.”