Luis Suárez

[Paddy]

I just did a pro/con thing I reckon.

[Leyton388]

5 live saying Suarez on a private plane to Montevideo while his lawyer is on his way to Barcelona to discuss Suarez future

[TheElephantMan]

I still think Suarez is amazing and I'd love him to stay if things were different. If we get a decent offer for him then I wouldn't be too disappointed to see him go. It would be a huge loss to the club, but I can't be arsed with his stupidity. He's a genius and a complete dickhead. Right now I'd rather he was another team's problem.

[johnly]

Ok so here's my two pence for what its worth. I've discussed it in professional circles and with way too many people recently and already bored of the same questions and jibes from, well you can guess where from.

He shouldn't have done it, he knows that, we know that and in a moment of madness, the lad snapped. His primal rage got the better of him and what happened happened. Its clear he needs support. Not help, but support. The network he had around him at Liverpool were clearly beneficial as they helped him focus and remain calm. Has going out of that zone affected him in a negative manner? Maybe. He needed that network of support with him at all times, the Uruguayan FA could have helped.

As for the ban and us, well its the worst outcome. For actions undertaken away from LFC, we are punished. To ban him from international games is acceptable. to take away his chance at World Cup glory, fair dos, but to ban him from Premier League games, Champions League and more along with no footballing activity is possibly a bit too far. Lets face it, he's not going to sit on his arse, watch Jezza and get fat is he? He'll train privately, they can't stop him having a kick around or playing on his tod right? Our position should be to challenge this ruling, we as a club have had nothing to do with this, so should not be punished. As for a sale of this 'poison' asset, no I don't think that is the way forward. Many say his value is gone. Well if we sell him for peanuts to Barca and then we get through to play them in the CL, you know what will happen. He'll knock us out and we'll look ridiculous. If he goes, he goes for a premium. What he's worth as a talent. Its a sad state, but in an odd way galvanises us. Personally I've fought my ass off to work in the career I'm in and I've had many set backs. In fact I get stabbed in the back on a weekly basis by underhand or ignorant folk. Yet I deliver results and perform better than others. Much like Suarez, these things have a tendency to light a fire. Boy will have a point to prove... again and will do so. Brendan will be hailed as a master manager for calming his temper and yada yada. Whatever happens though, I back LFC. They're all I'm bothered about here

[I, Ravel Morrison]

5 live saying Suarez on a private plane to Montevideo while his lawyer is on his way to Barcelona to discuss Suarez future

If this were true, I'd be fuming. His lawyer should be touching base with the club, not with another fricking club to negotiate a move.

[TheElephantMan]

We allowed Suarez to compete in FIFA's showcase competition. A competition that doesn't benefit our club in any way shape or form. Suarez is a huge star, probably the most famous current footballer on the planet right now (partially for the wrong reasons). We have handed our player over to Uruguay to light up FIFA's World Cup competition and he did. He was brilliant against England and then he went slightly mental against Italy. Who benefitted from him being at the World Cup? FIFA did and Uruguay did. It was a risk for us because he could have been injured. This situation needs to be reviewed, football clubs should not suffer due to indiscretions on FIFA's watch.

[Fredo]

https://twitter.com/danroan/status/482288343901020161/photo/1

[Venton]

Here's my risk management/assessment.

Sell Suarez = Weaker 1st team, weaker title challenge, maybe even no CL next year. He is a massive player for us. Not to mention another year older is Stevie.

Keep Suarez = It's not the LFC way blah blah. Yeah it is. Stand by him. Help him. Again. So be it. Title challenge. We keep our talisman.

No brainer for me.

Apart from all the rest in there, ouch.

[Venton]

I don't buy this whole deterrent argument either.

Deterrents are there to disencourage others from partaking in a particular activity. Clearly nobody else in their right mind would think about biting someone. It's so rare that it's ridiculous preposterous even. People don't need to be deterred from doing this.

It simply does not exist as a problem.

So treat it as violent misconduct and move on.

Could it not be there to deter him? The logic might be this: first bite - ban him for a few games; second bite - well, he clearly didn't learn so let's ban him for a few more and see if he twigs, surely he has to understand; third bite - **** me sideways, he's a proper mentalist, let's give him a good old fashioned nightstick and see if he gets it this time before we have to ban him for good.

[Venton]

Every football club needs to take note of what's happened today. Why would they release players for internationals and FIFA tournaments when there is a chance they can be banned for domestic games.

Because they don't have three time biters in their squads? Surely their risk has to be minimal? How many clubs have been in this situation before?

The idea that clubs around the world are going to rally to our worthwhile cause is beyond belief. Our flag is tattered now, it's not anything anyone else is going to fight for. They don't support us. We're on our own.

[Gibbo]

Was the 888 thing before, which probably suggests they've dropped him.

[Paddy]

Apart from all the rest in there, ouch.

Yeah I know, but I don't think that's what this comes down to. He has problems. We help him. It's not murder or rape he's committed. People are just hysterical over this.

[Fosterbloke]

Am I the only one that thought it looked like a really **** headbutt?

Still worthy of punishment but this all looks like hysterical bull**** to me.

[Gibbo]

Nah man it was deffo a bite, I thought that at first too bit there's a gif knocking about where you see it, he takes a nibble first then opens his mouth very wide then clamps down. Quite clear to be fair.

[MrMichael]

Were Luis Suárez's bite marks Photoshopped?

http://www.theguardian.com/football/photography-blog/2014/jun/26/were-luis-suarezs-bite-marks-photoshopped

It was the back page image across countless newspapers around the world: an outraged Giorgio Chiellini pulling down his Italy jersey to reveal a series of apparent indentations on his left shoulder. The photograph, snapped by Tony Gentile of Reuters, showed no blood. But it was evidence, it seemed, that Luis Suárez had indeed bitten Chiellini during the World Cup match between Uruguay and Italy.

I'll be honest, we all published it with a degree of relish. Not because we especially wanted Suárez to get his comeuppance – and boy has he just got it – but because we knew it was a photo that everyone would talk about.

The response on Twitter was predictably splenetic. Suárez's supporters claimed the images were manipulated, their argument promoted by a rather well-done diptych which did the rounds. The left-hand image – which had been photoshopped to remove the marks – purported to be the "real" unaltered version, while the right hand side – Gentile's original image – was labelled the fake. Trying to argue against it on social media was a futile game. Believe me, I tried. It didn't seem to matter that I could cite several other images by other photographers that corroborated the mark.


Real or Photoshop? The image that went viral on Twitter (the real version is actually on the right hand side). Photograph: Twitter

But what I and my colleagues on the picture desk found altogether more shocking was the suggestion that the Uruguayan FA might jump on the bandwagon. According to newspaper reports in Uruguay and Spain, when submitting its evidence in defence of Suárez, who has now been banned by Fifa from football for four months and nine international matches for his actions, the Uruguayan FA planned to argue that digital manipulation of images has been rife and that they cannot be trusted. Bizarre, right? Not exactly.

A quick trawl through recently published images of the incident is disturbing: for some papers, the pictures simply weren't good enough. The Mirror, for example, clearly felt it necessary to "colour correct" their close-up image so as to ensure the mark was visible. In fact, by the time the Mirror had finished with it, it was more than just visible, it was a joke. Chiellini's shoulder was a shade of red that suggested he'd been given a hickie, not a bite.


The close-up photo. Photograph: Mirror

The thing with colour correction is that it is a perfectly acceptable form of manipulation when done to ensure correct white balance or to ensure suitable reproduction of digital colour quality in print. But the Mirror, either through intention or incompetence, went several steps too far – and removed traces of the original marks. A simple soft or hard proof would have revealed as much, but one suspects they knew this already. Let's not forget that the Mirror were one of two British tabloids to conveniently edit out Chris Ramsey, the Spurs coach, from a back page photo of Tim Sherwood and Emmanuel Adebayor in April.

The Mirror weren't the only ones to edit a Chiellini image. The Daily News in America also heightened the contrast of the existing marks in their photo to draw readers' attention to the area. That, perhaps, is more understandable, although I think they overdid it. Subtle alterations to photographs can be acceptable but they should be done in ways that do not impinge on the veracity of the image – a slight dodge or burn, perhaps, to correct exposure, or a minor canvas extension when creating a feature page. The critical thing when picture editing is to maintain the truth. How else do you expect your readers to trust you?

If the Uruguayan FA goes ahead with its appeal on the basis of Photoshop fakery, they'll have little joy. Whatever caused the mark on Chiellini's shoulder, there's absolutely no denying it was there.