https://ameblo.jp/gaynor/ News for Luis Suarez blog ja
Gary Neville has defended Luis Suarez over accusations he dived to win a penalty against Aston Villa, insisting it was "clever" play by the Liverpool forward.

The Uruguayan went down under a challenge from Villa goalkeeper Brad Guzan in Saturday's 2-2 draw at Anfield to earn the spot kick that led to the home side's equalising goal.

TV replays suggested there was minimal contact between the two players, but Neville said Guzan touched Suarez and criticised the American for a rash piece of goalkeeping.

And he said Suarez simply did what every professional footballer is expected to do in that situation.

"Every single weekend it becomes a point of national debate when a striker goes down in the box," he told Monday Night Football.

"For me, the goalkeeper makes a really poor decision and 100 times out of 100, if a 'keeper comes flying out at a forward like that then you will end up with a penalty.

"I don't know what Guzan was playing at and I think that when he was sat at home yesterday he'd be reflecting that he'd do something completely different next time.

"A lot of people are offended by the potential that Luis Suarez has dived. If I was in an Aston Villa shirt, I'd be disappointed in my goalkeeper and if I was a Liverpool player I'd actually be disappointed if my player didn't go down in that position when a goalkeeper comes flying out. That's a professional point of view.


The Sunday Supplement panel discuss whether Luis Suarez dived to win a penalty in Liverpool's draw with Aston Villa.
"We're asking the question: is it a penalty or is it a dive? The answer is yes, it is a penalty because the knee of Guzan has gone into Suarez's ankle.

"Does he dive? If you watch Suarez's left leg he throws himself to the ground, wins the penalty and plays for it. I'd call it clever as a professional.

"People at home are offended by the fact that players can win penalties, but I'd call that terrible goalkeeping. Luis Suarez has done what I'd want a team-mate of mine to do in that position.

"People may not like hearing that, but that's a fact."

Clean game

Former Liverpool and Aston Villa striker Stan Collymore took to Twitter to accuse Suarez of diving, describing the decision as "embarrassing" and suggesting that physical football has been "killed by cheats and divers".

However, Neville believes all professional players have tried to earn an advantage by foul means during their careers.

"I can understand the public want a clean game and they don't like it," he added.

"But I can't believe ex professionals come out and suggest that they are offended by this. Every professional football player has tried to win an advantage or win a foul or go to ground easily during their career at some point.

"I guarantee you, absolutely."




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]]> https://ameblo.jp/gaynor/entry-11776366744.html Wed, 19 Feb 2014 18:39:16 +0900
Ten-year-old Niall Kingsnorth was at his first ever Reds game at the Goldsands stadium last weekend when striker Suarez handed over his warm up shirt .

The youngster, from Banbury in Oxfordshire, has thrombocytopenia-absent radius syndrome - a condition which means he was born without arms and prevents his blood from clotting.

He was at the match after the Make a Wish foundation - a charity which grants wishes for seriously ill children - arranged for him to meet the players.

Mum Debie said: "My brother is a Liverpool fan so Niall has always supported them.

"The Make A Wish foundation granted his wish to go and meet the players at their training ground last Thursday and while he was there Daniel Sturridge managed to get us tickets to go to Saturday's match.

"We hadn't planned to go and watch them so it was a bit of a shock when we got the tickets."




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]]> https://ameblo.jp/gaynor/entry-11776365534.html Wed, 19 Feb 2014 18:36:29 +0900
Arsène Wenger says he has no regrets over the failure to sign Liverpool's Luis Suárez, as he prepares to take Arsenal to Anfield for Saturday's lunchtime kick-off in a game of huge importance to his club's Premier League title challenge.

The Arsenal manager oversaw two bids for Suárez last summer, the second of £40,000,001, which was an attempt to trigger what Arsenal were led to believe was a release clause in the striker's contract. It succeeded only in creating anger at Liverpool, with the club's owner, John W Henry, saying, in a tweet: "What do you think they're smoking over there at Emirates?"

Wenger subsequently admitted that the bid did look provocative and was "not the most subtle thing we have done".

Suárez has reapplied himself at Anfield and he has been arguably the Premier League's player of the season so far, with 23 goals in 19 appearances. Although Wenger highlighted Liverpool's various offensive threats, it was clear that Suárez was the player that he wanted to stop.

"No, there are no regrets," Wenger said. "You have sometimes regrets when a player played for you, and scores goals or does well somewhere else [but] he was never our player. It is just a situation that did not come off and that is it."

Wenger, who insisted that it had not been his intention to replace Olivier Giroud with Suárez, was asked whether he might try again for the Uruguayan in the summer. "At the moment, no," he replied.

"For us, the important thing is to win the game. The fact about what happened in the summer [with Suárez] is nothing to do with that. If you want to win the game, what is for sure is that he's one of the players that you have to keep quiet.

"Liverpool have a strong offensive force with [Daniel] Sturridge, with Suárez, with [Philippe] Coutinho, with [Raheem] Sterling behind. All these players can score goals and make a difference. What you want on our side is a strong defensive performance and to dominate, to leave them as few balls as possible. The philosophy on our side has to be the same: to master the ball and to dominate the game."

Arsenal travel to Merseyside on top of the table, two points clear of Manchester City and Chelsea, after the latter's win at the Etihad Stadium on Monday night. City had entered the game as the favourites but Chelsea's 1-0 victory provided the latest twist in a tight championship race.

"I told you one month ago and you did not believe me … there is no invincible team," Wenger said. "It is because there are so many quality teams in the Premier League and it is just how close you are to your best every time which decides the game."

The Chelsea manager, José Mourinho, continued in his attempt to paint his team as the title outsiders after the City game, saying that, in a three-horse race, his was the "little horse". Arsenal and City, he said, had to be more heavily fancied.

"They [Chelsea] are in there," Wenger said. "It is easy to move out if you don't want … I just think they are in there, of course. We focus on our side and do not listen too much to what people say. What is important is that it is a period where you show up with good performances." ]]> https://ameblo.jp/gaynor/entry-11766977310.html Fri, 07 Feb 2014 18:31:56 +0900
It is never a good idea to completely swallow what José Mourinho is saying – few will believe his claim that Chelsea will only be good enough to win the title next season, for instance – yet the idea is already taking hold that the present top three will be the final top three and the rest of the season will merely establish the order.

In fairness, not too many Liverpool supporters would have disputed that suggestion at around the time Kolo Touré was rolling a suicidal square ball along the edge of his own area at West Bromwich on Sunday afternoon, though it is not too difficult to think of a couple of reasons why the Merseyside team could still have a big say in this season's championship. The first is Brendan Rodgers' oft-repeated mantra that the top three sides have still to visit Anfield in the league, beginning with Arsenal this Saturday.

Granted, that is not much use if the Reds are going to squander points away to West Brom and at home to Aston Villa, though the evidence from the Merseyside derby last week was that Rodgers can get his tactics right and his players motivated for the big games. Everton were poor in the derby, no question about that, but if Liverpool bring the same A game to their home encounters with Arsenal, City and Chelsea there is no reason why they should not take a share of the points.

People are quite rightly raving over Chelsea's performance at the Etihad on Monday, though Liverpool are not only playing in a similar way, they were almost as impressive on the same ground on Boxing Day. City's 100% home record might not have lasted until February had Raheem Sterling and his team-mates had a little more luck with refereeing decisions at the end of last year.

The other reason Liverpool cannot be easily overlooked is, quite simply, Luis Suárez. If it is true that the title is a three-horse race then the most accomplished and influential player in the Premier League will have to be an unusually quiet spectator in the next two or three months.

Which seems on the whole unlikely. While Suárez has just added another supporters' award to his collection for January, one imagines the Uruguayan would not be totally thrilled to end the season with only the Player of the Year award on his mantelpiece. Not that Suárez would necessarily claim that gong should Liverpool miss out on the honours.

Were Chelsea to win the league then Eden Hazard would be in with a good shout, or possibly even John Terry. Arsenal could supply two or three candidates should they remain on top, and if City manage to recover from the paralysis of Monday evening then Yaya Touré, Álvaro Negredo or whoever does most to make the goal machine fire up again would be worthy of consideration.

Yet in terms of influence no player is as important to his club as Suárez.

Whether this is because he is such an outstanding individual or Liverpool are something of a one-man team is an interesting if delicate subject for debate, but take his goals out of the equation and Liverpool would be back to looking up at Manchester United in the league table. Suárez may be behind Agüero in the goalscoring charts for all competitions – he was banned for the first few games this season and Liverpool are not playing in Europe – but his 23 league goals make him easily the EPL's top scorer. At this stage of the campaign he has played 19 league games, the same number as Mesut Özil at Arsenal and Wayne Rooney at Manchester United. For purposes of comparison, the respective goal tallies are 23, four (Özil) and nine (Rooney). Total number of shots? 87-19-51.

Crosses? 34-34-76. Chances created: 54-55-42. Passes completed: 731-1,271-866. Duels won: 127-70-80.

This column is not the world's biggest fan of bare statistics, which can be misleading and are more often than not boring, yet it is clear from the above that Suárez does much more for Liverpool than stick the ball in the net on a regular basis. He is never less than competitive in every area, and in some areas way ahead. Only Özil's pass total is vastly superior, for while Rooney's total of crosses looks impressive, 62 missed their target and Suárez actually has a slightly higher percentage of successful crosses. Hazard has put in more crosses (38), created more chances (62) and completed more passes (1,038) for Chelsea, but he has played in five more league games. He has scored only nine goals and had 33 shots.

The stats (don't worry, there won't be any more) appear to back up the evidence of one's own eyes. Suárez is a busy player who attempts to be involved in everything, more often than not with a degree of success.

Liverpool would have been lost without him for the last couple of seasons, though with Daniel Sturridge alongside and Rodgers favouring a quicker, counterattacking game that better suits the talent at his disposal, Suárez does not have to carry quite such a heavy burden and looks much happier for it.

Can he swing the title Liverpool's way? Probably not, if you want to be sensible and logical about it. Considering the strength of the other squads in the contest Liverpool still look susceptible if injury deprives them of a key player. But you would not bet against Suárez making a bid for the headlines at the weekend, against the team that offered £40m plus £1 for his services in the summer. And the weekend after that, for that matter, when Liverpool visit the Emirates in the FA Cup.

With Manchester United and Bayern Munich also looming, Arsenal are entering a critical phase of their season. So are Liverpool, who if they are going to turn non-involvement in Europe into an advantage, need to make sure they win their league fixtures against opponents possibly distracted by the Champions League. What that means in practice is that after Arsenal this Saturday, Liverpool must not let any more dozy points slip against Fulham, Swansea, Southampton and Sunderland in order to ensure they are in a position to nail down the coffin lid on Manchester United's Champions League hopes at Old Trafford in mid-March. If they can do that, Anfield should be quite a lively place again when Spurs, City, Chelsea and Newcastle come visiting in the final four home games of the season.

While Rodgers was doubtless wise to damp down the title talk, that does not mean Liverpool should aim no higher than fourth place. They are still in the mix, still a threat to their rivals, and they boast an individual capable of posing a threat to absolutely anyone. ]]> https://ameblo.jp/gaynor/entry-11766975946.html Fri, 07 Feb 2014 18:28:13 +0900