Norwich City must be sick of the sight of Luis Suarez after the Uruguayan striker recorded back-to-back hat-tricks at Carrow Road.
Another special three strikes from the temperamental ace in East Anglia helped Liverpool to a 5-2 victory and secure Brendan Rodgers his first Premier League win in charge of the Reds.
Suarez was in sublime form once again. While his behaviour has been questioned and his reputation hasn’t always been the greatest in England, no-one can deny that on his day, he is a class act.
He just loves playing against the Canaries and his contribution wasn’t just restricted to the three goals he took so well.
Harassing the home side
The first goal arrived in just the second minute. From the edge of the area, he struck a delicate shot into the bottom corner of the net past John Ruddy’s despairing dive.
He continued to harass the home side backline and they looked totally lost about how to deal with him.
Soon afterwards, he provided an exquisite pass aimed towards the captain Steven Gerrard whose finish was not deserving of the build-up play.
Suarez (pictured) looked like he was a man on a mission, even putting aside claims made for a blatant penalty.
From a long punt up the field by Pepe Reina, he got the wrong side of Leon Barnett, who clumsily dragged him down to the ground.
Responding in a positive manner
Amazingly, no penalty was given by referee Mike Jones and honestly, if he isn’t going to win a penalty for that challenge, he probably won’t win one this season.
He then missed a simple opportunity when in one-on-one with Ruddy and got some severe stick from the Norwich supporters.
Disappointed with himself, he quickly got over this frustration and responded to the crowd jeers immediately in the most positive and accomplished manner.
He caught Michael Turner dithering in possession and robbed him cleanly of the ball. He then curled a lovely strike past a faultless Ruddy to double Liverpool’s lead going into the interval.
If Chris Hughton had a gameplan for the second half to help his shattered defenders to deal with Suarez, that went out of the window in the opening moments of the second half.
Showing a selfish instinct
The Uruguayan burst into the penalty box and showed a selfish instinct to pass to Raheem Sterling rather than go for his hat-trick.
A deflection back into the path of Suarez saw him tee up Nuri Sahin for his third goal in a few days and wrapped up the three points for the rampant visitors.
10 minutes later, Sahin returned the favour as he found Suarez on the edge of the penalty area.
Via a small deflection, he produced the sweetest of finishes to complete his hat-trick and another world class showing against Norwich.
Skipper Gerrard who added a fifth later in the second half told LFC.TV: “Luis has had two fantastic days at Norwich, he’s a magician when he’s on it and he certainly was today.
“He scored three, but could have easily have had five or six goals himself out there and should have had a penalty – that’s how good his performance was.”
A scintillating hat-trick
In the process, Suarez became the first ever Reds player to net hat-tricks in the same away fixture in successive league campaigns.
Although this is a hard feat to achieve, to consider some of LFC’s striking legends before like Dalglish, Keegan, Hunt, Rush, Fowler and Owen couldn’t achieve this in their glittering careers means this shouldn’t be overlooked.
It was another scintillating hat-trick from a player who looks very confident and could provide many more highlights this season but unlike last term, for the right reasons.
Not everyone is going to be endeared by Luis Suarez but performances like the one he showed on Saturday will make him one of the stars to look out for as the season progresses.
By Simon Wright – Follow me on Twitter @Siwri88
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