Comment: Rodgers must teach Suarez how to earn real respect
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UPDATED:
21:45 GMT, 8 October 2012
Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers is not averse to taking on his players in public when he feels the time is right.
Just recently, for example, he suggested that winger Stewart Downing may not have the heart for a career at Anfield.
Rodgers may have a point. It is his job to make unemotional judgments on players, no matter who they are.
Taken a tumble: Luis Suarez went down in the box against Stoke
How odd, then, that the roguish Luis
Suarez continues to escape criticism. For if there is one player at
Liverpool who would appear to need a nudge in the right direction from
Rodgers then it is the Uruguayan.
After Suarez’s dreadful double dive
against Stoke City at Anfield on Sunday, Rodgers said he was tired of
answering questions about his player.
The problem, however, is not in the
questions but in the subject. Suarez does dive and, as well as costing
him his reputation, it is costing his team.
Referees no longer feel they can
trust him. They suspect his actions are rarely genuine. Hence the
25-year-old was denied a clear penalty at Norwich nine days ago and
another when he was shoved by Robert Huth on Sunday.
Suarez on the ground He must be
play-acting. That’s the thought process of many officials currently and
it is hard to blame them.
Dive: No Stoke defenders appeared to be near Suarez as he went down
He seems incapable of changing his modus operandi on his own so it is now incumbent on his manager to help him.
On Monday evening Rodgers used the
Liverpool website to launch not so much a defence of Suarez but an
attack on his treatment by the media.
Rodgers’s loyalty is admirable in one sense and will certainly be appreciated by Suarez. Maybe that’s the long game.
Unfortunately, his words rather missed the point.
It is true that Huth’s fifth-minute
stamp on Suarez did not receive the same coverage as the South
American’s later theatrics. But that’s largely because Huth does not
have a track record of violence.
Suarez, on the other hand, does have history when it comes to acting.
If Rodgers wishes Suarez to be treated sympathetically then he must encourage him to earn it. This is called management.
Floored: Brendan Rodgers is furious about this 'stamp' by Robert Huth
Suarez is not the only culprit.
Play-acting continues to curse modern football. Players such as
Manchester United’s Ashley Young have contributed. On Sunday,
Tottenham’s Gareth Bale joined the club.
Chelsea manager Roberto Di Matteo
spoke out after seeing Eden Hazard fall to ground too often. ‘In England
you need to stay on your feet,’ said Di Matteo. ‘I wouldn’t want the
officials to have a prejudice.’
Rock and a hard place: Brendan Rodgers has jumped to the defence of his star striker
Wise words from the Chelsea boss but
for Suarez the tide may already be too strong to turn and what is
problematic for Rodgers is that he badly needs the Uruguayan this
season.
Liverpool’s squad is desperately thin
and it was clear against Stoke just how much Rodgers’s team rely on
Suarez and Steven Gerrard for impetus.
Suarez is a wholehearted and
committed footballer. So hard did he chase a lost cause in the final
minute on Sunday that he almost ended up over the hoardings and in the
front row of the Kop.
All that tends to be forgotten,
though, when the highlight reels show him constantly falling to earth.
It’s embarrassing and when he isn’t trying to protect his player,
Rodgers will know this.
Suarez – an experienced international
- should be a leader for the likes of Raheem Sterling, Andre Wisdom and
18-year-old Spaniard Suso to follow.
Instead, he is the player the rest of
the Liverpool team often end up making excuses for. Forget Stewart
Downing, Anfield harbours greater problems.
