It was the
kind of day Sky dream of. A day to justify their all-singing, all-dancing
deadline day coverage. Three transfers, totalling more than £100m, and all
completed within 24 manic hours. No wonder Jim White and co struggle to contain
themselves.
For
Liverpool fans, January 31 2011 will never be forgotten. It was the day one
Reds hero severed his ties with the club in cold fashion, only for another to
emerge from the ashes. For a club which has had its fair share of hectic days
in recent years, this was off the scale.
With
Fernando Torres heading for Chelsea, and £50m heading to Liverpool's bank
account, it was pushing 10pm when Andy Carroll rolled up at Melwood to complete
a scarcely-believable £35m transfer from Newcastle.
But while
Carroll's signing can be criticised - and it is, with each passing week - the
other big-money deal at Anfield that day is beyond reproach.
Kenny
Dalglish and Damien Comolli had worked round the clock to bring Luis Suarez to
Merseyside. No wonder.
The
Uruguayan may be the second most expensive player in Liverpool history, but he
may just go down as one of the finest pieces of business the club has ever
made. A £22.8m bargain.
Comolli,
then the director of football strategy, had joined Liverpool only two months
earlier, the first senior appointment of Fenway Sports Group's ownership. Upon
his arrival, the Frenchman had been greeted with the news that Suarez, 24 and
fresh from a standout performance with Uruguay at the 2010 World Cup, was
target number one. Dalglish, at that point a club ambassador, had personally
scouted him at Ajax, the recruitment team were convinced he was the man.
Initial
enquiries, made that summer, had proven fruitless. Liverpool were quoted around
£35m for Suarez, a fee that, with the club buckling under the weight of George
Gillett and Tom Hicks' debts, was patently out of reach. Instead, they added
Paul Konchesky, Raul Meireles, Christian Poulsen, Joe Cole, Milan Jovanovic and
Danny Wilson to their squad, and replaced Rafa Benitez with Roy Hodgson.
Months
later, though, and the Anfield landscape was shifting. Hicks and Gillett were
ousted in acrimonious fashion in October, and Hodgson was gone weeks later,
replaced by Dalglish.
Then came
what Comolli has referred to as "the Suarez call".
"Our
chief scout Steve Hitchen rang one day," remembers Comolli. "He said
we had received some intelligence, that we could get Suarez.
"I was
stunned. 'Are you sure?' I said, and he said yes, there was a problem with his
club, they needed to sell, but that there was another Premier League club
trying to sign him. We needed to be quick.
"I
spoke to Kenny. He thought I was joking!"
He wasn't.
Suarez finalised his move hours before the Carroll and Torres sideshow.
Half-fit - he was in the middle of a seven-game ban at Ajax after the Ottman
Bakkal 'biting' incident - he made his debut as a substitute against Stoke at
Anfield 48 hours later, and marked the occasion with a goal inside 16 minutes.
He has barely looked back since.
The plan
initially had been to pair him with Torres, but with the Spaniard gone, the
Uruguayan wasted no time stepping into the breach.
His first
half-season brought only four goals, but his general play bewitched the Anfield
crowd. His invention, his trickery, but equally his passion, struck a chord
with supporters. Within weeks of his arrival, he had his own song. Rarely has
Depeche Mode been sung with such feeling.
Performance-wise,
though, there is little to criticise. Suarez scored 17 times last season,
despite his off-field problems, helping Liverpool end their six-year trophy
drought with victory in the Carling Cup final at Wembley. His goal in the FA
Cup semi-final against Everton set them on their way to another final, whilst
his hat-trick at Norwich will live long in the memory.
This
season, the levels have been upped further. Liverpool's dearth of strikers,
particularly during the early part of the season, was glossed over by Suarez's
one-man mission.
Having
faced questions over the quality of his finishing, he has taken the Premier
League by storm. He is the division's leading scorer with 22 goals and has 29
in all competitions. They come in the big games, the small games, the home
games, the away games. They come from outside the box and inside the box, with
his right foot, with his left foot or with his head.
If politics
were no issue in football, he would win both the PFA and Football Writers'
player of the year awards.
That there
is any doubt at all is down to his character, or people's perception of it.
Some see a driven winner, some see a master of the dark arts. When he dived in
front of David Moyes at Goodison - a response to some provocative pre-match
comments from the Everton manager - some saw a player enjoying his status as a
cheat. Others, Brendan Rodgers included, just laughed.
Liverpool
fans certainly did. They've been smiling a lot since Luis Suarez came to town.
No comments:
Post a Comment