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L4L Player of the Season Contender – Luis Suarez

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MY individual player season reviews continues, but this is the last piece to be done on those in the final 5 who were shortlisted for the Live4liverpool.com Player of the Year poll.

Links to the previous four reviews can be found below so please go check them out (and while you’re at it I have also reviewed Andy Carroll, Jordan Henderson and Charlie Adam so have a look at them too!).

The fifth and final shortlisted individual is our Uruguayan superstar Luis Suarez and there is a reason why I have left his review to the very end.

Liverpool Football Club has always had top level players and players that have really excelled in the red shirt; it has had home grown heroes and foreign stars and people like Gerrard and Carragher who are the absolute heartbeat of the club that can rely on no matter how tough it gets, but in every side there is that one magician. That special, special player who has the Midas touch that in spite of how they are playing you just know they have that one moment in them to turn a game on its head.

These players tend to be centre forwards as they are the players we adore, we want to be and we cheer. Hunt, St. John, Keegan, Dalglish, Rush, Barnes and Fowler are all names from the past that had that knack, that ability when all hope is lost to sniff out a goal. They held the Kop in the palm of their hand and in return were worshipped. In recent times that mantle was assumed by a certain Fernando Torres, a man long connected with the club through the infamous photograph of him wearing ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ on the inside of his Atletico Madrid Captain’s armband. A player destined to arrive at Anfield and assume the role of hero, to be cheered by adults and adored by children and have the Liverpool family fall in love with him. Even during his last few months at Liverpool, his shocking form and injuries were excused as we had adopted him as one of our own, but he threw this in our face to follow the ruble. Personally I was gutted, and the same heartbreak spread the Liverpool world over, we had lost our striker, our icon, our magician. Step up Luis Suarez.

That January had seen speculation surrounding the little Uruguayan build and build promising an imminent signature which didn’t arrive until those last couple of days, and what should have been a crowning achievement which would set salivation levels to 11 at thoughts of a Suarez/Torres partnership were overshadowed by the Spaniard. As with anyone who breaks your heart, this can impact for months and months, but that late night against Stoke when Luis came on and in a flash rounded the goalkeeper to slam (maybe my memory enhanced that bit!!!) the ball into the back of the net announcing his arrival – Torres was a distant memory.

Every time he stepped on the pitch he simply stood head and shoulders above, creating a buzz about him and bringing the simple joys of football back after the recent dark times in our history. That run against United at Anfield for the first of Kuyt’s hat-trick that day epitomises what he is about, using his stature to weave in, out and around players beating them with sublime skill or sheer tenacity and simply creating from nothing. The Kop, Anfield, Liverpool had a new hero, a new idol.

With the impact he had in the remaining games after having signed for us the spotlight was always going to fall on Suarez this season and I think the Sunderland game summed his season up pretty well! The lad was on fire, terrorising the Mackems forcing errors for the players and, as would continue throughout the season, the referee. How was Richardson not sent off? So he was presented with the opportunity early on to open his account for the season from the penalty spot, but as would prove frustratingly common failed to take the chance. He did open his account that day though with a fine header from a beautifully delivered free kick from Charlie Adam, who, after promising much for that afternoon and the upcoming season, ultimately flattering to deceive. In a game we dominated and should have put to bed comfortably with a healthy early season boost to our goal difference we snatched a draw from the jaws of victory, a rather depressing theme for 2011/12. Yet in the Uruguayan, game after game, what we saw we loved. He is an absolute box of tricks, you never know what he will do next, but mostly it will be a nutmeg! There is nothing like seeing the opposition ‘megged (particularly when it is John Terry, and nice to see Luis teaching Andy that trick!). The problem he has had this season is an inconsistency in the finishing department. Had Luis shown the composure and eye for goal he displayed against Norwich at Carrow Road he would have had an absolute bucket load this year and our season would have been very different indeed.

His play for me is very much in the Lionel Messi mould, he has that low centre of gravity and that uncanny knack of appearing to have glued a ball to his feet. He is capable of drifting past players, the skill to dribble past and that attribute of being extremely hard to knock off the ball when in possession. Like Messi he seems capable of winning the ball in ways you think not possible. I mean how many times have we seen a defender trying to shepherd the ball out of play and Luis ghost in some how to rob him of possession. As discussed though, the major flaw in Suarez’s game is goalscoring.

He has that ability to score the outrageous and the wonderful but to fluff his lines at the bread and butter stuff whereas Messi seems capable of scoring anything, with a blindfold on, dizzy and standing in custard. Suarez has it in his locker though – that second he scored against Norwich to me was one of his best. While it was not one of his most spectacular goals, he created the opportunity himself and had a long time to think about what he was going to do before rifling past Ruddy. Up until that point, the majority of his goals were instinctive or at the end of a run in which his had little time about where to place the ball. It is this composure and finishing ability that the likes of Robbie Fowler and Ian Rush had, and if he could take this and build on it I don’t see why next season he can’t bang in an absolute shed load.
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With this in mind, I don’t think we have seen Luis in the position which suits his abilities, personally within the 4-2-3-1 system or even the 4-4-1-1 system I see him behind the central striker in each and on the right hand side in the former. This kind of role would see him allowed a greater freedom with more time and space to get hold of the ball and attack with it. When we have seen Luis up front on his own this season he has been too easy to contain (as much as he can be!), as he will have two centre backs working in tandem to deny him the ball or to pressurise him when he has it, and even when he does win the ball and get to turn and run there was usually nobody further forward to assist.

In a slightly deeper/wider role it will be harder for the opposition to double up on him without creating spaces elsewhere and increase his chances of running at defenders and really committing them. The form we saw from Carroll towards the end of the season is the key in releasing Suarez and really getting the best from him, and that partnership was starting to gain momentum. The playing side of Luis Suarez is easily amongst the crème de la crème in world football, he has all the right tools in the locker and when he is able to harness them at once, as we have seen, he is unstoppable. He seems comfortable with the weight of carrying that number as well as being the focal point of the fans love without displaying the burden of expectancy. For me he is the clear choice for player of the season, as despite the problems he has endured he got on with his job and continued to excite the crowd and produce through difficult times.

Now, it would be poor of me to produce a season review of Luis Suarez without mention of his 8 game ban and my thoughts surrounding this. In simple terms I believe he was made a scapegoat by the FA who were desperate to make an example in such a high profile case following pressure laid down by outspoken individuals and a media intent on villainizing a player in one form or another. I want to raise specific points that don’t sit comfortably with me about the whole affair and why I think the final decision was just plain wrong and why what I believe to be the good character of an individual has been falsely sullied.

First off I don’t think the club handled the situation at all well in the media or in the ‘trial’ and had they perhaps changed tact or approach, the final outcome would have been very different. The basic premise of what occurred seems to me to be acceptable as I believe it is fairly obvious that during that game Suarez and Evra had a disagreement and falling out with words being said by both parties. Note I said both. Now, when you have a Frenchman who will have at best a limited understanding of Spanish let alone specific dialects from Uruguay, it is not a surprise that a misunderstanding of language will have occurred, and consequently Evra may have believed Suarez said something racist.

As I said, this to me is all acceptable, I can see that this may have happened and the cultural differences will have resulted in this breakdown, yet my first issue with the whole case lies at the reactions of Evra. Rather than going through the channels following the game to get an explanation of what happened and seek clarification of what he thought was said (very important word ‘thought’!), Evra made an official complaint immediately and then went off to the French media to publicise his version of events. Compare this to the reaction from Anton Ferdinand who has shown a remarkably dignified approach in face of some quite vicious abuse from sections of the Chelsea support.

This leads on to my next problem, in that in the case of Luis Suarez people like Jason Roberts and Paul McGrath came out to speak against him in the build up to his ‘trial’, further prejudicing the case against Suarez, whereas in comparison the law requires that nobody is to speak of the John Terry case until the trial has been concluded. A trial I must add in which Terry is to be judged beyond a reasonable doubt compared to the balance of probabilities that Suarez was allowed. I will make the suggestion here that with the amount of ‘evidence’ and ‘proof’ against Suarez, the case would not have been passed by the CPS to make it a chargeable offence.

As I understand it the main evidence in the case was supplied by Patrice Evra, a man who has previously been described as an unreliable witness, and not actually supported by any of his team mates, the referee or any other player bar Suarez, who freely volunteered the phrase he uttered on one occasion – not the multiple suggested by Evra and not containing the word that Evra initially claimed he used. Genuinely, please correct me if I have got this wrong.

Specialist language experts were called in and stated that if the phrase was spoken in the way Suarez states he said it (again, the importance is that Suarez volunteered this information, probably wrongly, but by doing so showed he had nothing to hide), then it was not racist, but if it had been spoken how Evra stated it had been spoken, then it was indeed racist. Now if this were to have taken part in a crown court then the standard of proof required would have seen Suarez acquitted. But no, the FA used the balance of probabilities and used their discretion to side with Evra over Suarez due to the manner he delivered his evidence. Silly Luis Suarez for getting heated and agitated giving evidence with such a thing hanging over his head! Ahem! Let’s not forget that Evra was also allowed to give evidence in front of the evidence being displayed whereas Suarez was not, so no wonder Evra’s account was more accurate to events that could be seen.

Let’s also not forget those parts of the statement from Javier Hernandez, whatever they were, that the FA omitted from their case. Perhaps an admission as a player from a similar region of the world that the terminology used was not at all racist? I mean Hernandez used the same language in an online interview whilst at his own club! So the fact they banned him in two parts, one part for the language used – language they decided he used on the balance of probabilities – and the second part for the number of times he used it, despite only Evra actually presenting this information.

The whole case for me smacks of the arrogance of the FA and another example of a clear lack of knowledge in cultural differences in the modern game, it’s no wonder the rest of the footballing world can’t stand us. I was further more frustrated by the comments by McGrath, Roberts and even George Galloway who all took a decision in which essentially the FA state that Suarez probably did it, as gospel truth. This is further apparent in the media’s shock that Suarez recently came out and stated his own opinion on the matter and his continuation that he was innocent.

I thought Glen Johnson was very brave to come out and say what he said in response to McGrath and raised some very good points that largely went ignored, as did the very well put comments of John Barnes, but then neither suited the media driven agenda against Suarez. Some will and have claimed that my defence of Suarez is purely down to club and player loyalty, but I would challenge them to step back and review the case, the facts and the evidence available and think would this case actually get to the Crown Court let alone pass the beyond reasonable doubt test and find Suarez convicted? I seriously doubt it.

Don’t get me wrong, Suarez is no angel; I personally think he was wrong not to shake Evra’s hand at Old Trafford, and if it was the case of funny games played by Evra then he should have stood and waited until Evra walked away or shook his hand.

I am sure in my rant towards the end I have missed off quite a number of points that I wanted to raise on this subject, but my overall opinion is that Suarez is innocent and was wrongly treated by the FA and continually wrongly treated by the media, and I am quite happy to discuss this with anyone whether they agree with me or not. Please come find me at @timdibs on Twitter.

Ending on footballing terms, there can be no finer compliment to Suarez in stating that he looks a natural fit in that legendary number 7 shirt, and hopefully this will continue for a long time to come.

Please come find me on twitter @timdibs  love chatting LFC

Other L4L Player of the Year Contenders: Martin Skrtel, Daniel Agger, Jose Enrique, Pepe Reina

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5 comments

  • Lfc4lifer says:

    Watch goal rush – When he played he was involved in at least 80% of our goals either by scoring, assisting or being part of the build up.

    Those who say he didn’t do enough talk absolute rubbish!

    Suarez and skrtl both for the award.

  • Jasonm says:

    He is the best attacking player we have.

  • Firoz Hirji says:

    Suarez is our best player and certainly for me the player of the season. One is left to wonder how many goals he would have added to his tally if he hadnt been banned for 9 matches. Suarez is pure class and he will get even better

  • NJRedsFan says:

    Think about this, Suarez is still at LFC but those who should have protected and handled his ‘case’ are not.

  • Awesome player, great at attacking. Am with Firoz and think his tally could have been a lot higher if it wasn’t for the ban.

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