The Luis Suarez bite debacle has prompted scathing criticism from a whole host ex-Liverpool players, but Reds legend Alan Hansen has delivered the most biting condemnation yet.
Speaking to the BBC, Hansen conceded that Suarez is a 'brilliant player' who's had a 'brilliant season', but the former Reds captain didn't equivocate when it came to his assessment of the Uruguayan's latest bite attack. He barked:
"It’s absolutely appalling. Why he did it we will never know.
"He has previous, and there’s obviously a massive flaw in his character.
"It’s horrific for Liverpool Football Club, for it’s history and tradition, and for the player himself. It’s just appallingly bad"
According to The Independent, the FA is chomping at the bit to to ban Suarez for a minimum of seven games.
Suarez received a 7 match ban for biting PSV's Otman Bakkal in 2010, though clearly, he didn't learn a thing from that incident (!). As such, the ban for theattempted cannibalisation bite on Branislav Ivanovic's arm should (IMO) be more severe.
In other news: Manchester United striker Robin Van Persie added insult to injury earlier tonight with a hat-trick against Aston Villa, which moves him ahead of Suarez in the the race for the Golden Boot.
Poor Luis - as well as a lengthy ban and (almost certainly) losing out the 'Player of the Year' award, he looks set to miss out on the goalscoring award too.
When it rains, it pours...
Jaimie Kanwar
NOTE: Please stick to the Comment Policy (Click to read)
Speaking to the BBC, Hansen conceded that Suarez is a 'brilliant player' who's had a 'brilliant season', but the former Reds captain didn't equivocate when it came to his assessment of the Uruguayan's latest bite attack. He barked:
"It’s absolutely appalling. Why he did it we will never know.
"He has previous, and there’s obviously a massive flaw in his character.
"It’s horrific for Liverpool Football Club, for it’s history and tradition, and for the player himself. It’s just appallingly bad"
According to The Independent, the FA is chomping at the bit to to ban Suarez for a minimum of seven games.
Suarez received a 7 match ban for biting PSV's Otman Bakkal in 2010, though clearly, he didn't learn a thing from that incident (!). As such, the ban for the
In other news: Manchester United striker Robin Van Persie added insult to injury earlier tonight with a hat-trick against Aston Villa, which moves him ahead of Suarez in the the race for the Golden Boot.
Poor Luis - as well as a lengthy ban and (almost certainly) losing out the 'Player of the Year' award, he looks set to miss out on the goalscoring award too.
When it rains, it pours...
Jaimie Kanwar
NOTE: Please stick to the Comment Policy (Click to read)
it was Villa u Manc C**T
ReplyDeleteagainst aston villa not wigan
ReplyDeletemy gosh jamie i know u hate suarez but your going overboard with it whatever happened to getting behind our players and our club i mean i did not like the situation neither but players do nonsense at times at times emotions get in the way of logical reasoning have u never had a moment where your emotions got the better of you and u did something u truly regret if not then your not human pls just leave suarez alone so what u chase out suarez from the club and then what what will happen to liverpool who will liverpool possibly get to replace the class act that is suarez whatever yes i hope u get your way and suarez leaves cause fans like u are not seeing the bigger picture
ReplyDeletewhat happened to my comment
ReplyDelete'Bigger picture'? What are you on about? The bigger picture is Suarez continuing to destroy LFC's reputation.
ReplyDeleteI'm merely reporting what an LFC legend said about the incident, and most fans will be interested to read Alan Hansen's take on the issue. If you can't handle it, that's not my problem.
sure sure its not like from day one u had a personal vendetta against suarez before it was evra vs suarez replace him, suarez not scoring goals replace him, suarez stamp on player replace him, bayern want suarez sell him, now this i'm not attacking u jamie i like your articles believe or not liverpool-kop.com is one of my bookmarks but i don't like to see fans attacking a player unless they deserve suarez has done nothing but put his heart and soul into this club and this is how we repay him if thats how we repay the guy then yh he should leave he deserves much better and in my book he'll always be a legend
ReplyDeleteJust reporting? Give me a break.
ReplyDeleteYour glee is almost tangeable..
Nonsense. That's what you're projecting onto the post.
ReplyDeletejamie go get another job because u my friend are a muppet, and you know little to nothing about football or my liverpool. TEAM SUAREZ ALL THE WAY
ReplyDeleteIn the perfect world, nobody would dive, nobody would disrespect other fellow professionals on a football field. Nobody would make quasi racist gestures, nobody would make horrendous two footed, potentially career ending challenges. In the perfect world "journalists" would have a sense of perspective.
ReplyDeleteSuarez has shamed the club. He may be a great footballer. But we just can't stand here and say it is acceptable because he is our player. Time has come to cash in and get rid. 40 to 50 mil should be a decent sum. We can get good replacements with that kind of money.
ReplyDeleteHansen also drew parallels to Defoe incident, which lines him up with arguing Suarez's case for lesser punishment, based on precedence.
ReplyDeleteWhat about yesterday. "" I told you so""
ReplyDeleteThis is a rare occasion I'll be siding with JK. He's not said anything particularly inflammatory in this instance. I just can't agree that anyone has gone "overboard" on this issue, the guy stuck his teeth into someone, it's just insane. Suarez deserves no pity or support or defense on this issue and he should expect none. His manager has reprimanded him in public, Ayre has followed that up, he's been fined by the club, ridiculed by fans, mocked by other players and will be banned by the FA. None of that is inappropriate There are mistakes, there are moments of "passion" and regret, but there is simply never ever ever a place on a football field for biting someone. It's just completely got nothing to do with the game. He's not trying to stop the ball or block the defender or contribute to the game in some way. Even a two-footed tackle which could be given a straight red is more acceptable than this because at least with a tackle you're making some attempt to get at the ball and actually play the game. Even sticking out your hand to intentionally block the ball is more acceptable because at least it's related to the ball and trying to stop a goal. Pulling a shirt, diving, a shove in the back ... all of these things are against the rules but they almost always occur in the context of actual football i.e. the player is playing the game, albeit against known rules. Biting someone is quite simply about inflicting pain, it has nothing to do with football. There is just never a need for something like that on a football pitch. It's a moment of absolute madness and Suarez needs to address his underlying issues that cause him to act in this way.
ReplyDeleteI'm putting bets on a 10 match ban and Suarez would do well to put his head down and accept it. The guy needs anger management. His intensity on the field is what makes him such a brilliant player. He can go for 90 minutes and never give up, but at some point that intensity goes too far and he cracks under the frustration of not getting things his way. Time for Liverpool to put those renowned sports psychologists to work.
ReplyDeleteI love Luis as a footballer and I make a clear separation between what he does with the ball at his feet and how he otherwise behaves. When he's just playing football and nothing else he's simply incredible and for that I still have great respect for him. As a person I can see he has some real issues and his personality on the pitch can really be unpleasant. I don't revere him or hero-worship him, I simply see that when he's playing the game the way it's supposed to be played that he's a talent worth watching.
Plus his injury record is outstanding. The games he misses due to bans are the same as what other players miss due to injury or simple fatigue. Suarez puts in the minutes even when he ends up forced to the sidelines. I'm still in favour of keeping him around. I'm not terribly concerned with the reputation of the club. Cantona was a certified nut-job, Keane a contracted hit-man, but Man United are still a highly respected football club. We say all the time that no player is bigger than the club so let's put that code into action. Liverpool's reputation is bigger than Suarez. If he can't mend his ways then there will come a time when we need to cut him free but he has in fact already shown evidence that he at least seems to want to improve his behaviour in all aspects. This is close to a last straw but I'm not yet thinking it's time to sell and be done with him.
ReplyDeleteIt's all gone a bit Pete Tong hasn't it.
ReplyDeleteIt beggars belief that such an outpouring of moral outrage and shock
and a frenzy of pontificating can be attributed to an action usually
associated with 9 year old girls.
If I presented Hansen's comments to someone who didn't know what incident/action they were attributed to and asked them to guess, I bet you biting would be somewhere down the list along with pulling hair and pinching. Rape, pillage or murder most probably being the top 3 guesses.. along with watching EastEnders.
Hansen's aren't even the harshest .. not by a long shot. Other's would have you believe you were reading comment's about a genocidal dictator or the anti Christ himself.
I mean I couldn't stomach most of the tripe and hypocritical guff that was coming out around the whole Suarez/Evra affair but I could at least see that racism is a serious issue and one could expect nothing less than the shed load of attention and palaver that ensued..
But this.. this is surreal.
Admittedly, while the sight of watching a grown man bite another man like a nine year old girl is a bit surreal in itself , I only find myself bemused by his actions rather than outraged. Disappointment, and certainly embarrassment that he couldn't thump the guy like a man.. I mean since the playground days none of us wants a girl on our team.
That said, the reaction is simply staggering.. calls from the PM down to any idiot with a twitter account to come down on the Merseyside Muncher with the same force and gusto that met the Boston bombers is incredulous.
This practise of chastising people in public goes back a long long time.. and society's of people have enjoyed a good public flogging or execution for millenniums . Even though society has advanced(debatable) from those days, this is our the modern equivalent, a good ol' fashioned flogging.. through the media.
And this is not enabling .. this is rationalising .. of an incident and the worlds reaction to it.
Rationally speaking it makes no sense that one man biting another man during a game of football should generate this much drivel and bile from so many quarters and the worlds press.
He should be and will be punished.. but a bit of perspective and would go along way.
Citing imperfection of the world does not grant you the right to dive and disrespect, or save you from punishment. If you can not behave like dignified person, you get punished. It is as simple as that. Moving the focus to the media only shows the willingness to create excuses for what is inexcusable.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I can not recall Liverpool fans citing the world's imperfection to support other teams' cheats before Suarez was signed.
agree m8 if it was just reporting how comes no articles about how rush and barnes have made other comments about suarez maybe there enablers
ReplyDeleteI said "perspective". I am not saying he shouldn't be punished now am I? Where in my comment did I excuse his actions?
ReplyDeleteand rush
ReplyDeletewhy should he accept a ten game ban and defoe get a yellow card thats really fair on suarez isin,t it
ReplyDeleteI did not allege you said so, I just noted imperfection of the world (which is used widely by fans for making up excuses for Suarez) is something that nobody denies, but can not be used in relation to Suarez or the media to support the former and blame the latter.
ReplyDeleteWhat the hell is all the fuss about sure its not sportsman like behavior but its hardly the worst thing happening in the ever corrupt world of football.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately not all players are nice people and although we put them on pedestals should not be role models.
This is one incident even your PM wants a go at heck what is he dirty over Thatcher, Suarez will cop his penalty and the football world will continue on.,
Attempted cannibalisation?
ReplyDeleteThen you as all children are cannibals because they bite when they fight!
cheap journalism!
ReplyDeleteNow, it's very cheap journalism! My last time here!
ReplyDeleteI'm not projecting anything. Are we to believe your comment 'Poor Luis' means you feel sorry for him then?
ReplyDeleteAlso, the attempted cannibalisation 'joke' was hardly necessary to report Hansen's comments.
As has been pointed out below , your favourite player, John Barnes, John Aldridge and others have very different views, curiously not even alluded to in your piece.
I guess they are Enablers too?
Oh, and Aldridge lol
ReplyDeleteI think in order for our conversation to end amicably, you need to realise that you are wrong and that I am right. As long as we can agree on that, I can't see us having any issues.
ReplyDeleteI never said I had an issue with you. I only challenge attitudes and points made.
ReplyDeletebut just the negative players get shown on some sites baised me thinks
ReplyDeletechris as always a voice of reasonable logic :-)
ReplyDeleteI am glad this has ended amicably.
ReplyDeleteDozens of LFC related things happen every day; I post 3-5 articles a day, so I can't cover everything. I post about the stuff that interests me most, and Hansen's comments are more interesting to me than Barnes and Rush's comments. It's important for condemnation of serious issues like this to be publicised, and not brushed under the carpet by enablers, whoever they may be, which is another reason for my choice. If you or anyone else doesn't like that policy, then sorry, but that's tough luck :-)
ReplyDeleteputting in 100% all game should be expected of every player. they get paid millions every year.
ReplyDeletesuarez should get the same punishmaent as defoe anything else is predjucice and racism
ReplyDeleteFine, that's your editorial right.
ReplyDeleteJust don't claim to be just reporting, that implies a journalistic bent. You are relaying an ex player's view which happens to coincide with your own, any dissenting ex players can be roundly ignored.
I get it. Hansen's opinion was the most 'interesting'
There are plenty of hysterics just like you and Hansen around.
Hardly hysterical. Hansen's comments, perhaps, but all I've done is call for Suarez to be banned by LFC. I haven't called for him to be sacked or anything stupid like that. My comments on this issues are incredibly tame compared to most views out there. My main gripe is with the club's handling of the situation, not with Suarez. Ajax banned him when he did it the first time - LFC should've done the same.
ReplyDeleteEvery season it happens...Just like any other team,GET OVER IT
ReplyDeleteYou forgot Defoe is English
ReplyDeleteyes the biggest issue bit like terry
ReplyDeleteThe Terry case is a complete joke..The main difference between Terry and Suarez's case is that we know for definte Terry was guilty,with Suarez it was Evras word against his which leaves room for doubt yet Suarez gets double the ban.If Suarez was guilt fine he got what he deserved but Terry certainly did not get enough punishment
ReplyDeleteSo in the eyes of the FA biting is more the three times worse than headbutting,twice as bad as racism and best of all the incident before this for which Defoe got the very harsh punishment of a big bad yellow card,Suarez should be grateful for 10 matches,after all he could have gotten a yellow card -____-
ReplyDelete