Sturridge signing will hand Suarez even more problems

Liverpool's Luis Suarez was the pantomime villain of the FA Cup for his 'handball' goal against little Mansfield, but Ralph Ellis believes that hides bigger issues ahead for the Uruguayan striker.

 

Luis Suarez is not the first footballer to have scored a goal with the use of his hand and he certainly won't be the last. Maradona and Thierry Henry are quite good company for him to keep.

 

At least Liverpool's Uruguayan striker didn't run away celebrating wildly after the goal that effectively knocked little Mansfield out of the FA Cup. He clearly expected it to be disallowed, and Liverpool got lucky that Andre Marriner and his assistant were just the latest two officials to make a ghastly muck-up.

 

The storm and accusations of cheating will doubtless rumble on today, and as a result Suarez can forget any outside hope of being voted the PFA's Player of the Year. He may be only one goal behind Robin Van Persie in all competitions - 19 against the Manchester United star's 20 - but in sentiment terms he was already miles behind and has just moved even further.

 

In fact I'm amazed that, with the voting forms due to go out to the players in the next few weeks, RVP is not an even shorter price than the current 1.7 to be PFA Player of the year. He's settled so quickly into Manchester United's side and, as he proved at West Ham on Saturday night, is not just scoring lots of goals but scoring big goals too. The only possible rival is Swansea's signing of the season Michu, a long shot at 17 in the current betting, but the players will put a premium on Van Persie's status as the striker who looks likely to bring the Premier League title back to Old Trafford.

 

Anyway, there is a bigger issue to come for Suarez than whether he got lucky with a dodgy handball goal or not. The conundrum for him, and Brendan Rodgers, is how he fits in the same team as Daniel Sturridge.

 

When Sturridge was negotiating his move from Chelsea he made it clear he expected to play as a central striker. He felt he had to get away from Stamford Bridge because he was never going to get picked ahead of Fernando Torres in that role.

 

You presume that Rodgers gave him assurances before completing the £10m deal that he would get his wish. So where does that leave Suarez in the Anfield plans? If Liverpool thought the two could play together, an FA Cup trip to a Conference team ought to have been the perfect opportunity to test the theory.

 

Instead Rodgers began the game with Sturridge as his lone striker, and when the Englishman tired after 55 minutes he sent on Suarez from the bench. That suggests that when Liverpool go to Old Trafford next weekend in the Premier League there will only be room for one of them down the middle.

 

We saw at Newcastle what happens when two into one won't go. Demba Ba sulked about playing wide after Papiss Cisse arrived, and when Alan Pardew tried to solve that by moving Ba back to the middle, it was Cisse who moped in protest at switching to the wing. Rodgers could well find himself having to deal with the same clash of egos.

 

Liverpool are 2.44 for a top six finish, and the theory of signing Sturridge is that the addition of another striker to the squad should give them more chance.  But there's just as much chance it could harm their current best goal getter instead of help him.

 

Bet HERE

Viewed 477 times