Luis Su\u00e1rez has offered a stark assessment of his own career, arguing that the best version of himself arrived at Liverpool rather than during his trophy-studded years at Barcelona. After a turbulent start on Merseyside that included a ban over an incident involving Patrice Evra, Su\u00e1rez grew into a dominant figure by his second full season in England. That rise followed further controversy when he was retrospectively banned for biting Branislav Ivanovi\u0107, and a failed move to Arsenal added to the turmoil around him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Su\u00e1rez at Liverpool in 2013 or 2014, when everything was going his way\u2014because everything was going his way\u2014was special,\u201d the man himself told SPORT . \u201cIt\u2019s a streak, a moment, when everything clicks and you enjoy it.\u201c<\/p>\n
WhoScored figures underline how influential he was in 2013\u201314: 31 Premier League goals (1st), four counterattacking goals (1st), 181 total shots (1st), 81 shots on target (1st), 12 assists (2nd), 88 chances created (3rd), 237 dribbles attempted (1st) and 93 dribbles completed (2nd). Su\u00e1rez scored 31 goals in 33 top-flight appearances that season, equalling what was then a competition record, and he did so without taking a single penalty.<\/p>\n
A late-season collapse cost Liverpool the title and cleared the path for Su\u00e1rez\u2019s move to Barcelona in search of trophies. At Barcelona he joined a frontline that already contained Neymar Jr. and Lionel Messi and adopted a different role.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Su\u00e1rez at Barcelona was completely different from the Su\u00e1rez at Liverpool because of the space and the role he had to fulfil,\u201d he outlined. \u201cI always explained it: at Barcelona, I learned to play in a 10×10 meter space with one touch, something I didn\u2019t do at Liverpool. At Liverpool, I had 40 metres to run on my own, and I had to trick myself and fight for the ball. It was the same in Uruguay. At Barcelona, no matter where I looked, I had to get used to passing accurately.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even with that positional shift, Su\u00e1rez produced his most prolific European seasons at Barcelona. The standout campaign came in 2015\u201316 when he combined 54 goals with 23 assists, 40 of those goals coming in La Liga. Across 2009\u201319 he also broke a dominant scoring duopoly to claim the European Golden Shoe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Luis Su\u00e1rez insists his Liverpool 2013-14 form was superior to his Barcelona period, he said. again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4519,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1017,175,1125],"tags":[1081,1162,1215],"class_list":["post-4520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-barcelona","category-liverpool","category-strikers","tag-adaptation","tag-analytics","tag-controversy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}