Has Luis Suarez now caused more damage than any bite?

IN the weeks leading up to the home game against Chelsea, Luis Suarez found his name on the back pages of the newspapers and on most fans lips for purely footballing reasons.

He was the leading goalscorer in the Barclays Premier League, well on his way to being the first Liverpool FC striker since Fernando Torres back in 2007-2008 to score 30 goals in a season and had just been nominated by his peers for the Footballer of the Year award.

People were finally seeing what all us Liverpool FC fans had been saying all along; he is a great footballer who was letting his football do the talking. Any thoughts of the race row between him and Patrice Evra and the subsequent handshake fiasco were tantalisingly close to being completely forgotten.

That was until the 21st April 2013. During one of the best performances Liverpool FC put in against one of the top four teams in the country last season, Luis Suarez, with no provocation bit Bransislav Ivanovic on the arm during a tussle off the ball in the Chelsea penalty area.

Fortunately for Luis Suarez the incident went un-noticed by all the match officials, and Suarez went on to equalise for Liverpool FC in the 90th minute of the match. Unfortunately, there was only ever going to be one talking point after the game.

Suarez had made himself back page and quite surprisingly front page news but for all the wrong reasons once more. Even the Prime Minister got in on the act, it was certainly a media frenzy and as close to a witch hunt as you are ever likely to see.

The FA reacted quickly also and dished out a 10 game ban. Initially there was outrage and disappointment from Liverpool fans and I myself spent time defending Suarez and his actions but it’s hard to defend someone who has done something similar in the past.

So Liverpool finished the season without Suarez and as the dust settled on what was an ultimately disappointing season. We as fans were encouraged by the comments made by Suarez about his future and how he only saw himself at Liverpool FC.

All was forgiven from our point of view as fans and the club was ready to move on with the planning for the new season, a season which we all thought would include our star striker.

Then, almost out of nowhere the rumours started. Twitter was awash with sources and people supposedly in the know about Suarez wanting to leave and play for Real Madrid. He had given an interview while away with Uruguay on international duty saying that he would find it hard to turn the Spanish giants down if they came calling.
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Most fans hoped that something had been lost in translation, that he was politely answering a question posed to him but had no real interest in Real Madrid. How wrong we were.

As the days came thick and fast so did the Luis Suarez soundbites, he was looking for “a change in environments” he didn’t “feel comfortable anymore” in England and blamed the media for almost hounding him out after the Ivanovic bite incident.

Although he and he alone was responsible for the bite incident, nearly all Liverpool FC fans I spoke with seemed to have genuine sympathy for him and I think we all hoped that a summer of transfer stories, managerial changes and of course a long break from the UK would help the press move on to a different story and just leave our Luis alone.

As we now know that didn’t happen, and perhaps now Suarez has bitten off more than he can chew with us fans, now with his open flirtation with Arsenal and how his initial claims that he had to leave England due to his constant persecution have been proven to be false, has he pushed us too far?

Do we as fans deserve more than this? Or do we just accept this is football and if he cannot get the move he wants come August 31st do we welcome him back into our hearts with open arms? Is it ok as long as he scores the goals he scored last season? I for one am not sure.

Firstly, I think Daniel Sturridge is our first choice striker for the new season. Secondly, the team performed very well without Luis Suarez last season and I’m confident of a good start this upcoming season without Suarez in the starting line-up. Thirdly, in Philippe Coutinho we have the perfect No10 and his link up with Daniel Sturridge would mean that Suarez, when fit and available, would have to play in one of the wider attacking positions. Would he readily accept that?

Especially if the club had stopped him getting the move he appears to desperately want. I doubt that he would, and do we want a sulking player around the club? No matter how much ability he has I would suggest that we do not.

My final reason is that as we all know, we are not one of the elite teams in terms of finance and FSG and Brendan Rodgers have stated many times that it may take three or four transfer windows before we get the players we want into the club and the players we don’t want out.

The £40-45 million transfer fee we would expect to get for Luis Suarez would help speed up our transfer dealings and help improve the team and squad overall. As the saying goes, you’re only as strong as your weakest link.

Have Luis Suarez’s actions of the last month caused more damage than any bite could have?

Can we still forgive and forget?

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