Personally, I thought another year and next summer would have been appropriate but the acceleration of the deal shows all three parties were happy to get the deal done. Whether Liverpool will be better off from a footballing perspective at this moment it’s hard to say but from an image/PR point of view the club will be happy that his off the pitch and inherent act of madness is gone. At the same time all geniuses are flawed and born of genuine madness, as a banner unfurled among Kopites bore out.
The question is where to now for Liverpool people will ask. Opposition fans point to the amount of goals and assists contributed last season, not a mull point but using those statistics does a disservice to a Liverpool side which on a whole is greater than some of its parts. For Rodgers and the transfer committee they don’t need to find a Suarez, as honestly there isn’t player like him in European or World football to replace like for like. The objective now having built the side around Suarez in his first two seasons in charge, the dynamic of this Liverpool side will shift a little.
Arguably the debate surrounding the current links to Wilfried Bony, Dejan Lovren and just this morning I seen Jay Rodriguez will rumble on and on. Are they Liverpool quality, define quality? Is it a big name or one the manager wants. Like any manager Rodgers will know more than most what players he wants, for Liverpool managers at times when they need to push on and in certain cases sign the wrong players.
We seen how Spurs got it badly wrong, the similarities with Liverpool and Spurs end with Franco Baldini. Liverpool experienced it with Damien Comolli as he did at his time at Spurs, the opinion of the collective rather one person has shown to bear fruit. The inherent risks of any transfer case study, Spurs would have been it last season of what a Director of Football enforcing players down a managers throat can do but there of examples of when it works well. Abroad, clubs like Ath. Bilbao, At. Madrid, Benfica, B. Dortmund, Porto and Sevilla have it down to an art and moving forward from doing so.
What is to come can only be quantified come May 2015 to see the greater impact, this will be a test for Rodgers and his tricky reds. Just like last season when they were written off even when top at Christmas, they only got better and better. Derision is a great source of antipathy towards someone else’s ability, the longer that continues that will mean Liverpool been successful which regardless of Luis Suarez that is what matters most.
All I will say signing off is adeu Luis, thanks for the unforgettable moments that will live forever in Kopites minds.
