The Barcelona forward is unsure if he would have continued playing had he made a similar error.
Luis Suarez doubts he’d still be playing if he had slipped in the manner Steven Gerrard did in last season’s title clash with Chelsea. The Liverpool captain made a fatal error, failing to control a pass on the halfway line, before slipping as Demba Ba ran through on goal to score. Liverpool would lose the game 2-0, severely denting the club’s hopes of a first league crown in 24 years. In his new autobiography, Crossing the Line, Suarez said: ‘If I had been in Stevie’s shoes, I don’t know if I would have been able to carry on playing. Emotionally, it must have been very, very hard. The captain, the former youth-teamer, the one-club man, a Scouser born and bred, and he was the unlucky one to make a crucial mistake’.
Liverpool were on a fantastic run, winning their 11 previous fixtures, before coming unstuck against Jose Mourinho’s side, and Suarez believes Gerrard’s slip was the season’s pivotal moment. ‘I’m convinced that if Chelsea had not scored like that, they would not have scored at all. And once you are a goal down against them, it’s virtually impossible’. The Uruguayan revealed that confidence had spread throughout the dressing room and the squad felt they were on the verge of a historical title. Optimism peaked following their 3-2 victory over eventual champions Manchester City. ‘In the previous weeks, so much had been said about him, the expectation had built so much, the talk had been about him leading Liverpool, his club, to a first title in over 20 years, on the 25th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster, in which his cousin had died, and then that happens’.
Liverpool face Chelsea at Anfield on Saturday, the first meeting between the sides since the game last April when Gerrard slipped. Brendan Rodgers said that the incident was just ‘an unfortunate thing that happened in the game’ and attaches no blame on his captain for Liverpool’s title capitulation. The Liverpool manager said Gerrard returning from such a crushing disappointment ‘shows the character’ of the player.
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