Luis Suarez: Forget Ideas of Selling, Liverpool Need to Find Best Role for Star

There has been an awful lot said and written about Luis Suarez, Liverpool's Uruguayan forward, since he joined the club from Ajax last January.

For the first four months or so of his tenure wearing the famous number-seven shirt, almost all of it was extremely positive.

His dribbling ability, close control and penchant for the unexpected made him an exciting and talented addition to the Premier League as a whole—and to the Liverpool front line in particular.

A summer spent on his home continent as he won the Copa America with his nation seemed to indicate that Suarez was embarking on the best point of an already-impressive career.

However, since his first match back in red this term it has been a season of wonderful highs and extreme lows.

Right from the opening day of the season, where Suarez missed a penalty and scored a goal, he has fluctuated between gaining headlines for all the best reasons—and plenty of the worst ones.

His much-publicised exchange with Manchester United's Patrice Evra landed him an eight-match ban, while another match suspension was served for a one-fingered salute of Fulham supporters in December.

Add to that his less-than-prolific approach to shooting, and the ammunition has certainly been there for Suarez's detractors, and for much of it he must take a certain amount of blame on his shoulders.

But at the other end of the scale, Suarez has scored some fantastic goals for Liverpool, perhaps none more spectacular this season than his curling effort against Stoke City in the League Cup, one of the most important strikes during the competition as the Reds went on to win the trophy outright.

Despite this, much of the recent talk about Luis Suarez has been, remarkably, about whether or not Liverpool should cash in on the striker in the summer.

What ludicrous nonsense is this?

Liverpool are aiming to get back into the top four of the Premier League, and thus return to playing Champions League football.

Quite simply, selling one of the few genuine match-winners in the entire league is not the way to go about their business.

Let's be clear: Almost all of this "chat" about selling Suarez has come from either the mainstream media—who have decided to permanently cast "Luisito" in the role of chief villain—from envious glances of opposition supporters, or else from superfans who think that signing a 30-goal a season striker is priority number one and that players can be sold and bought with a few clicks of a mouse or control pad, a la Championship Manager or FIFA.

That's about all.

But the talk is ridiculous.

Liverpool have between three and five really top-drawer players in their squad now.

Three years ago, almost to the very day, Liverpool battered Real Madrid 4-0 at Anfield.

That team contained world-beaters like Pepe Reina, Javier Mascherano, Xabi Alonso, Fernando Torres, a very much prime Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher and several extremely good players, though maybe not in the world-class bracket, such as Alvaro Arbeloa and Dirk Kuyt when at the top of his game.

Fast forward to Liverpool's current squad and there are perhaps only three really top-drawer players, with Reina, Daniel Agger and Suarez the only ones worthy of being in that category.

Of course, with a full preseason under his belt, captain Gerrard could certainly still lay claim to that title and Martin Skrtel will join those ranks if he continues his resurgence of the last four months over a more extended time period.

Of those players, only Gerrard and Suarez himself affect the final third—the business end of the pitch—the area of the field in which Liverpool have experienced the most troubles this season.

Do we really think that selling one of those players is the way to go to improve?

The issue with Suarez and Liverpool in the eyes of some fans is that, in his role as the Reds' best forward, he hasn't scored enough goals.

There is no defending this, six goals from 89 shots is nowhere near good enough and must be improved.

But it's not Suarez's fault alone that Liverpool have only scored 30 goals in 26 games.

The finishing in general has not been up to scratch, and his own particular talents may be better suited to playing a slightly different role.

His solo runs and moments of magic might not have led directly to as many goals this season as they did in his half-term of 2010-11—he has just one assist in the Premier League this season, though seven in all competitions—but they almost always lead to some kind of end product, whether that be a shot for a teammate, a corner, or some other chance of attack for his team.

In addition, though, he has scored a relatively low six goals in league play this season.

Half of them have been key goals—strikes which have directly affected Liverpool's points tally—with his match-winners against QPR and Wolves bringing six points, and his Sunderland effort claiming a further one.

Suarez also netted the second killer goals in matches against Arsenal and Everton which—while not point-winning strikes by themselves—certainly alleviated any possibility of late comebacks from the pair.

Only his recent goal against Manchester United has been entirely "pointless."

He has been, therefore, a scorer of important goals rather than of meaningless ones.

Darren Bent, for example, has won his team just a single point more than Suarez has, with his strikes for Aston Villa, despite scoring three Premier League goals more than Suarez.

So what do Liverpool need to do to bring out the best in Suarez?

Well, perhaps a slight change in tactics is required for the team overall, or perhaps having a regular strike partner for him.

There are basically four options for Kenny Dalglish with Suarez:

Continue to play him as the top centre-forward, and invest further in supporting players in the hopes of creating more opportunities to score.

That will likely be the choice for the remainder of the season, perhaps coupled in with the second—regularly play him with the same partner in attack.

That could be with Steven Gerrard in behind, instead of in his more withdrawn central midfield role.

Or it could be with Dirk Kuyt as against Arsenal.

Alternatively, it could be with Andy Carroll, if he gets a full run of games until the end of the season. Forwards need games to work on their combinations—just the same as central defenders do.

Playing two up front (or one behind one) doesn't really matter at this point. It is about developing an understanding between Suarez and his partner, enabling them to create chances quickly between themselves.

We've seen instances of it with Carroll and Suarez, and perhaps more with Kuyt and Suarez, but whichever pair is chosen should try to continue as often as possible in the starting 11.

Building relationships and partnerships all over the pitch is part of what will win Liverpool games. Maybe the front line has suffered this term as a result of frequent changes in both the wide areas and the centre-forward spot.

A third option for Kenny is to drop Suarez entirely.

It's not really a viable option, given the reasons stated above, but it might give a bit of an insight as to how much more work the team would need on it without him.

If Suarez was to leave, its not just a matter of buying someone new to replace him.

If a finisher comes in, who creates those chances that Suarez makes for himself?

Who takes players on, runs at defenders in the box, wins penalties, and drags centre-backs out of position to create space?

Jordan Henderson certainly doesn't do it.

Gerrard can't do it from 30 yards downfield.

Kuyt will run, but not with the ball at his feet.

Bellamy is great with the ball at his feet—when running into space, but not when trying to wriggle between three or four defenders in a two-metre space.

So perhaps the fourth option might be a way forward for next term—change the system a little.

Liverpool have played more or less with a 4-4-2 this season, though this has changed at times.

Against some of the better teams, an extra midfielder has come in to play 4-2-3-1, while the various three-at-the-back systems have made fleeting welcome appearances.

While I'd love to see Liverpool play with an adventurous 3-4-3 system on a regular basis, there is certainly both precedent and familiarity amongst the players to implement a very real 4-3-3 more often than not.

Watching Liverpool every week, clear patterns emerge—one full-back gets forward more than the other on any given match.

Suarez drops five yards deeper for every five minutes that he doesn't have a shot, Charlie Adam takes too long to release the ball, and the Reds don't fill the penalty box with enough bodies.

Sometimes, Stewart Downing will be putting over a great cross—or a dreadful one—and Carroll will be stood on the penalty spot.

Suarez will have offered himself short.

Henderson will be lurking outside the box on the very far side, in case the cross is over-hit.

And that's it.

Two too-deep centre midfielders, nobody bombing into the box making a late run like Gerrard in his pomp, or Frank Lampard on a six-minute cameo appearance off the bench.

Nobody really being aggressive and believing that they can make up the extra body in the box and have a telling impact.

It's easy to say "this will change things," but perhaps a more attacking 4-3-3—I mean three forwards instead of a 4-2-3-1—would have an impact on the mentality of certain players and give them the freedom to get into the box more regularly.

Moving Suarez out to, for example, to the right side of that attacking triumvirate means Liverpool lose none of their attacking impetus in the final third.

Remember his goal from that area against Sunderland last season? Wit this tactic, they are almost guaranteed to have somebody attacking the box from that zone when the attack is coming from the opposite flank.

The security of an extra central player would let Henderson, or Gerrard, or whoever, break forward from midfield more often too.

And, perhaps crucially for Liverpool overall, there would be another player in the middle ready to do the link-up work and get on the end of chances.

You can discuss all day who that should be—Carroll, Kuyt, Bellamy or A.N.Other—but the point is that the best resources would be being made of Luis Suarez, a truly exceptional football player, without sacrificing any of his involvement in the play or having to worry about him not scoring 20 goals a season.

It's not as if Liverpool have an exceptional right-winger anyway who has made that position their own, is it?

Defensively, the team could easily resume their normal "midfield four" shape with one of the central players dropping to the right, Henderson for example, and Suarez coming deeper through the middle as he does now.

I'm sure Kenny Dalglish, Steve Clarke and Kevin Keen have been over this.

I'm sure they are considering what is the best position for him, if they need to remove him from the top dog in attack position for the benefit of the team, and I'm sure that they have come up with several ideas and scenarios that I couldn't dream of.

What I'm also sure of is that they are not considering—in the slightest—selling him.