Luis Suárez

[danperkins]

Crazy thing about Giggs is that he's done more this year than he did last

it's actually ridiculous i think he sticks his legs into cryogenics every night, only way to explain him getting better and better, kinda annoying actually

[banditos]

Going back to the negotiation period with Ajax over Suarez, myself and other spent ages saying how ridiculous it would've been if we'd missed out over paying an extra £2m-£3m....thank feck we paid it! Imagine how we'd be feeling now if Suarez was doing this for another PL club and we'd lost out over a couple of million.

I imagine it would be like watching Ronaldo, Vidic, Simao, Alves etc playing really well for another team because we wouldn't fork out that little bit extra.

[Rich]

it's actually ridiculous i think he sticks his legs into cryogenics every night, only way to explain him getting better and better, kinda annoying actually

If by legs you mean penis and cryogenics you mean a certain Big Bro....

oh

[danperkins]

If by legs you mean penis and cryogenics you mean a certain Big Bro....

oh

oh your in trouble, "The Man" is coming after you

[CJ]

it's actually ridiculous i think he sticks his legs into cryogenics every night, only way to explain him getting better and better, kinda annoying actually

its not unusual though is it.

some good players seem to have a really outstanding 2 or 3 seasons at the end of their career after they have adapted to a slightly different role

[McDermotX]

dont forget giggs

it's actually ridiculous i think he sticks his legs into cryogenics every night, only way to explain him getting better and better, kinda annoying actually

Giggs wins 2032 PFA and Football Writer's Award...........although he's still stuck on 12 Premier League medals following Liverpool's rise to power

[tsb]

We initially went in with a £12m bid or something of that ilk, according to reports

If we'd paid £30m, it would've been a bargain

[Tee]

Giggs wins 2032 PFA and Football Writer's Award...........although he's still stuck on 12 Premier League medals following Liverpool's rise to power

[tsb]

That Giggs pic is just.... epic

:lol:

[Mostar]

Suarez compilation vs Fulham.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm-1VxQSzUA&feature=player_embedded"]YouTube - Luis Suarez[/ame]

[Rudo]

Giggs wins 2032 PFA and Football Writer's Award...........although he's still stuck on 12 Premier League medals following Liverpool's rise to power

[Mostar]

http://tomkinstimes.com/2011/05/luis-suarez-the-hole-story/

Luis Suarez – The Hole Story

was fitting that it should be at the former home of the erstwhile excellent Fulham manager (and subsequently awful Liverpool manager) that Luis Suarez should encapsulate everything that was wrong about Roy Hodgson’s approach between August 2010 and January 2011.

While Hodgson did not possess the mercurial, magical Uruguayan, he did have other players who could ‘play between the lines’. It was a phrase that was a mantra to the previous Liverpool manager, Rafa Benítez, who looked to players like Luis Garcia, Yossi Benayoun, Dirk Kuyt and, most successfully, Steven Gerrard, to occupy the spaces where it’s harder to be marked, and to link with the adjoining midfield.

There are different ways of playing in modern football. But two ‘flat’ strikers is almost as out of date – certainly at top clubs – as a cigarette and snifter at halftime. And yet Roy Hodgson persisted with the chalk and chalk of Torres and Ngog, and direct football from a back four shorn of its more technical ability. Players who were stationed wide tucked in, but there was little movement beyond that no; no interchanging and switching, no marauding full-backs, to pull defences apart. No wonder the Reds scored so few goals. It was half a season of plodding.

(And as we were playing Fulham, this was another chance for people to tell me that Hodgson was poorly treated by Liverpool fans, that we would have had the same upturn in results had he stayed, and so on. The day he does a really good job at a big club, and not just ones with lower expectations, come and let me know. He’s been superb at West Brom, but that doesn’t alter the myriad mistakes he made at Anfield.)

As soon as Kenny Dalglish and Steve Clarke arrived, the Hodgson blueprint went out the window, and performances improved; and then, after a couple of early setbacks, results improved too. A -3 goal difference would soon become +18. The Reds went from relegation form to accruing more points than anyone else.

In the first game, Gerrard was back in the hole, although he was sent off after 30 minutes at Old Trafford, obviating that plan before it had a chance to take hold. Raul Meireles was next in line to occupy the position, and before long he was popping up in all kinds of clever areas, and banging in a few goals, too.

Both of these options were open to Hodgson, but rarely turned to. And after just six goals in 21 games under Hodgson, even Torres was back to his old scoring habits, with three in five; showing that he needs someone to feed the ball through, rather than another body right up alongside him, getting in his way. (Maybe true at Chelsea too, given that neither he nor Drogba has scored when on the pitch together, although he now has a big price tag and a new team to settle into.)

Even with a whole host of senior players out injured (Gerrard, Carroll, Kelly, Agger, Aurelio and more), the side functions based on clever passing and movement from ‘canny’ players like Maxi, Meireles and Kuyt, all of whom were at the club in the first half of the season, without really impressing too much.

I’m sure Hodgson would have liked a new striker. But would he have plumped for someone like Suarez? It doesn’t matter; Dalglish, Clarke and Comolli did. And Liverpool have not looked back.

Yes, the new regime helped unite a fractured dressing room, but they also stopped Liverpool playing like a team whose ambitions were simply to avoid relegation or hoping to not get beat 6-0 at Manchester City (quote Roy Hodgson, 2nd game of the season).

So, what of Suarez’s performances? Well, they have been a masterclass of movement, technique, tenacity and finishing. At times he shows uncanny awareness for others, although there’s no denying that he’s not afraid to ignore everyone else and have a pop himself. (If he has a weakness, it’s been that some of his shooting has been a bit wild, but usually when he’s purely speculating out of nothing; when faced with a good goalscoring chance, he tends to choose the right option.)



Before the last two games, in both of which he scored, I was trying to work out how many goals he’d been involved in. By this, I don’t mean just by scoring or directly assisting, but also by making a telling touch in the build-up to a goal.

He scored on his debut as a sub against Stoke, but lacking match-fitness after more than a month without playing in Holland, he was eased in gently over the next few games. It wasn’t really until Mid-February that he got going, especially as he wasn’t eligible for the Europa League. As it stands, he’s only made ten starts for the club, and one appearance from the bench.

But it was against Manchester United at the start of March that he truly arrived: a jinking run as fine as any individual contribution made by Torres at his best, to set the opening goal on a plate for Kuyt and help us move on from the departed no.9. He was also the last Liverpool player to touch the ball before both of Kuyt’s next two goals, with a cross (albeit headed to Kuyt by Nani) and then a shot that Van der Sar could not hold.

At Sunderland Suarez scored from the most ridiculous of angles, after yet another clever turn inside the box. At West Ham he put another ball on a plate for a simple tap-in, this time for Glen Johnson, after – you guessed it – giving a defender twisted blood in the box.

Four of the goals against Birmingham owed something to his contribution. The first goal came after a shot of his was blocked (though the goal came in the second phase). The second goal came after his clever running took him clean through on goal, with Kuyt tucking away the rebound after Suarez’s shot was brilliantly saved. The third goal came from his spin in behind the right-back, showing that he can be as dangerous on either flank, with the finish coming as he floated a pin-point cross for Maxi to tuck away. And he also set up Maxi to shoot for the Argentine’s hat-trick, even if the midfielder needed a second bite to tuck it away after the keeper parried it.

As well as scoring against Newcastle, Suarez won a penalty, again by getting tight to a defender and then spinning him to distraction. While he may exaggerate when falling, he draws foul after foul after foul.

And then last night, as well as another expertly taken goal, he created Maxi’s first, again with a run down the inside-left channel followed by a clever ball across goal, even if Fulham contrived to divert it into Maxi’s path. (Also, he won – in the eyes of everyone but Lee Mason – a clear penalty, that was also a definite red card for the hapless Hangeland. Given what Mason sent off Degen for last season, you have to laugh.)

Ten starts, four goals, three direct assists and a penalty won. But a total involvement in now fewer than twelve goals. What’s more, all of his assists have been teed up to almost unmissable degrees. Add a quite phenomenal work-rate, and it’s no wonder that Ajax fans rated him more highly than Wesley Sneijder.

As Liverpool fans, this season we’ve experienced a lot of things we’d rather forget. But thankfully, we now have a few things to remember, and to look forward to. And of Luis Suarez, we just can’t get enough.

[Mostar]

http://tomkinstimes.com/2011/05/luis-suarez-the-hole-story/

Luis Suarez – The Hole Story

It was fitting that it should be at the former home of the erstwhile excellent Fulham manager (and subsequently awful Liverpool manager) that Luis Suarez should encapsulate everything that was wrong about Roy Hodgson’s approach between August 2010 and January 2011.

While Hodgson did not possess the mercurial, magical Uruguayan, he did have other players who could ‘play between the lines’. It was a phrase that was a mantra to the previous Liverpool manager, Rafa Benítez, who looked to players like Luis Garcia, Yossi Benayoun, Dirk Kuyt and, most successfully, Steven Gerrard, to occupy the spaces where it’s harder to be marked, and to link with the adjoining midfield.

There are different ways of playing in modern football. But two ‘flat’ strikers is almost as out of date – certainly at top clubs – as a cigarette and snifter at halftime. And yet Roy Hodgson persisted with the chalk and chalk of Torres and Ngog, and direct football from a back four shorn of its more technical ability. Players who were stationed wide tucked in, but there was little movement beyond that no; no interchanging and switching, no marauding full-backs, to pull defences apart. No wonder the Reds scored so few goals. It was half a season of plodding.

(And as we were playing Fulham, this was another chance for people to tell me that Hodgson was poorly treated by Liverpool fans, that we would have had the same upturn in results had he stayed, and so on. The day he does a really good job at a big club, and not just ones with lower expectations, come and let me know. He’s been superb at West Brom, but that doesn’t alter the myriad mistakes he made at Anfield.)

As soon as Kenny Dalglish and Steve Clarke arrived, the Hodgson blueprint went out the window, and performances improved; and then, after a couple of early setbacks, results improved too. A -3 goal difference would soon become +18. The Reds went from relegation form to accruing more points than anyone else.

In the first game, Gerrard was back in the hole, although he was sent off after 30 minutes at Old Trafford, obviating that plan before it had a chance to take hold. Raul Meireles was next in line to occupy the position, and before long he was popping up in all kinds of clever areas, and banging in a few goals, too.

Both of these options were open to Hodgson, but rarely turned to. And after just six goals in 21 games under Hodgson, even Torres was back to his old scoring habits, with three in five; showing that he needs someone to feed the ball through, rather than another body right up alongside him, getting in his way. (Maybe true at Chelsea too, given that neither he nor Drogba has scored when on the pitch together, although he now has a big price tag and a new team to settle into.)

Even with a whole host of senior players out injured (Gerrard, Carroll, Kelly, Agger, Aurelio and more), the side functions based on clever passing and movement from ‘canny’ players like Maxi, Meireles and Kuyt, all of whom were at the club in the first half of the season, without really impressing too much.

I’m sure Hodgson would have liked a new striker. But would he have plumped for someone like Suarez? It doesn’t matter; Dalglish, Clarke and Comolli did. And Liverpool have not looked back.

Yes, the new regime helped unite a fractured dressing room, but they also stopped Liverpool playing like a team whose ambitions were simply to avoid relegation or hoping to not get beat 6-0 at Manchester City (quote Roy Hodgson, 2nd game of the season).

So, what of Suarez’s performances? Well, they have been a masterclass of movement, technique, tenacity and finishing. At times he shows uncanny awareness for others, although there’s no denying that he’s not afraid to ignore everyone else and have a pop himself. (If he has a weakness, it’s been that some of his shooting has been a bit wild, but usually when he’s purely speculating out of nothing; when faced with a good goalscoring chance, he tends to choose the right option.)



Before the last two games, in both of which he scored, I was trying to work out how many goals he’d been involved in. By this, I don’t mean just by scoring or directly assisting, but also by making a telling touch in the build-up to a goal.

He scored on his debut as a sub against Stoke, but lacking match-fitness after more than a month without playing in Holland, he was eased in gently over the next few games. It wasn’t really until Mid-February that he got going, especially as he wasn’t eligible for the Europa League. As it stands, he’s only made ten starts for the club, and one appearance from the bench.

But it was against Manchester United at the start of March that he truly arrived: a jinking run as fine as any individual contribution made by Torres at his best, to set the opening goal on a plate for Kuyt and help us move on from the departed no.9. He was also the last Liverpool player to touch the ball before both of Kuyt’s next two goals, with a cross (albeit headed to Kuyt by Nani) and then a shot that Van der Sar could not hold.

At Sunderland Suarez scored from the most ridiculous of angles, after yet another clever turn inside the box. At West Ham he put another ball on a plate for a simple tap-in, this time for Glen Johnson, after – you guessed it – giving a defender twisted blood in the box.

Four of the goals against Birmingham owed something to his contribution. The first goal came after a shot of his was blocked (though the goal came in the second phase). The second goal came after his clever running took him clean through on goal, with Kuyt tucking away the rebound after Suarez’s shot was brilliantly saved. The third goal came from his spin in behind the right-back, showing that he can be as dangerous on either flank, with the finish coming as he floated a pin-point cross for Maxi to tuck away. And he also set up Maxi to shoot for the Argentine’s hat-trick, even if the midfielder needed a second bite to tuck it away after the keeper parried it.

As well as scoring against Newcastle, Suarez won a penalty, again by getting tight to a defender and then spinning him to distraction. While he may exaggerate when falling, he draws foul after foul after foul.

And then last night, as well as another expertly taken goal, he created Maxi’s first, again with a run down the inside-left channel followed by a clever ball across goal, even if Fulham contrived to divert it into Maxi’s path. (Also, he won – in the eyes of everyone but Lee Mason – a clear penalty, that was also a definite red card for the hapless Hangeland. Given what Mason sent off Degen for last season, you have to laugh.)

Ten starts, four goals, three direct assists and a penalty won. But a total involvement in now fewer than twelve goals. What’s more, all of his assists have been teed up to almost unmissable degrees. Add a quite phenomenal work-rate, and it’s no wonder that Ajax fans rated him more highly than Wesley Sneijder.

As Liverpool fans, this season we’ve experienced a lot of things we’d rather forget. But thankfully, we now have a few things to remember, and to look forward to. And of Luis Suarez, we just can’t get enough.

[Tee]

Jeez, that Tomkins can't half ramble on.....

[Rudo]

MARK HUGHES hailed the stunning performance from Liverpool's Luis Suarez which wrecked his team's hopes at Craven Cottage on Monday night.

But he also blasted his side for making the Merseysiders 'look better than they are'.

Suarez netted once in a 5-2 win which was founded on a three goal burst in the opening 15 minutes, from which Fulham never recovered.

“We never really dealt with the quality of Suarez,” the Whites boss acknowledged.

“I haven't seen a great deal of him, but obviously he's a talented player.

“I don't think our guys have been up against him too much at international level, so it was a new experience for them and they'll learn from it.

“He was always mobile, always in little pockets of space. Maybe we allowed him too much time and never really dictated to him. It was always the other way round and when good players have time and space, they can hurt you, which he certainly did. He was outstanding tonight.”

But Hughes added: “On too many occasions we made unforced errors and making wrong decisions in poor areas of the field. We possibly made them look better than they are.

“The game had gone from us within the first 15 minutes. Three-nil down at home was certainly not something we were expecting from the way we've played in recent months.

“It was a real body blow to us and I think it affected us. It sapped the confidence out of what we were trying to do.”

Speaking of his team's brief rally in the second half, Hughes said: “It would have been very easy to get people behind the ball and do a damage limitation exercise, but that's not what we're about or what I'm about.

“It was about getting a response to try and get back into the game and the first 10-15 minutes of the second half, I thought we did that and we got a goal back.

“If we'd got a second it would have been an interesting game. But credit to Liverpool. I thought they were excellent on the night.”

http://www.fulhamchronicle.co.uk/london-sport/fulham-fc/2011/05/10/hughes-frustration-tempered-by-admiration-for-suarez-64767-28664263/#ixzz1Ly1x0ffo