You say that but I remember the Suarez thread on here at the time, it was full of people saying we needed to hire a striker coach to show him how to finish, how we couldn't rely on him for goals, how he'd never be a good finisher at the top level and even Kezman had gotten more goals in the Dutch league, how we should shift him to the wing etc. There are actually a lot of parallels with then and the current Núñez talk.
Have you actually gone back and watched Suarez' misses and woodwork hits from his first season and a half? I'd be interested in watching that video if it exists.
Exactly.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2012/mar/05/liverpool-luis-suarezFrom the Guardian.
Luis Suárez is this season's most talked about player, yet so little talk has been about his football. Suárez is a fascinating player because he has an unusual style of play – it's difficult to think of another player, past or present, to liken him to. He's a small, quick dribbler who enjoys roaming the pitch laterally, yet was also a brilliant poacher in his Ajax days. The first half of that description holds true for his 14 months at Liverpool, but he is yet to prove he has the finishing ability of old. That is crucial, considering Liverpool have the worst shot conversion rate in the league, at 9%, and have scored as few goals as Wolves, in the relegation zone.
Suárez's goal return this season is, in isolation, extremely disappointing. He's scored six goals from 21 appearances, a similar record to West Brom's Shane Long, and worse than Norwich's Steve Morison or Bolton's Ivan Klasnic. It's hardly unprecedented for a striker to arrive from the Eredivisie and be significantly less prolific in the Premier League, but Suárez is clearly no Afonso Alves or Mateja Kezman – he's not overawed by the league, he's not playing badly, he's just not scoring enough.
Six goals doesn't look much better when you consider that Suárez has 4.2 shots per game – only Wayne Rooney and Robin van Persie have more, and they've scored 18 and 25 goals respectively. But shots per game is a statistic open to interpretation and debate, and Suárez epitomises the uncertainly with which it should be viewed. Players with a high shots per game rate are generally exceptional performers – from Europe's top five leagues, first and second by that measure are Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. The main thing this says is that they're constant threat, which is something Suárez – to a lesser extent – also offers.
Glenn Hoddle once said that Andy Cole needed six or seven chances to score one goal, which was an extremely harsh reflection on an excellent striker, especially as the criticism stuck with Cole for the rest of his career. But if, for a second, we take Hoddle's view as gospel (which is always a slightly dangerous game), was Cole's problem that he needed six or seven chances? Or that he needed six or seven chances that had been created by others? Cole wasn't simply a finisher, but he was predominantly a penalty box player. The apparent wastefulness was more obvious when it came at the end of a swerving David Beckham cross, from a lofted Paul Scholes pass or following a surging Ryan Giggs dribble. It looked as if he was letting the side down, ruining someone else's good work.
Suárez is completely different. If Cole's need for six or seven chances was worthy of criticism, Suárez's record of scoring a goal every 14.8 shots is truly terrible (with the caveat that a "shot" is not quite the same as a "chance"). If he were a pure poacher, that ratio would be worthy of a place on the bench.
