Liverpool’s various demolitions of Norwich over the past few years featured 12 goals in six games from the Uruguayan, including no fewer than three hat-tricks. It has become somewhat clichéd to remark that Liverpool are not the same team without Suárez – few sides would be. The question is whether the Anfield revival of a couple of seasons ago was a fleeting illusion based more on Suárez’s potency – with additional help from a fit Daniel Sturridge and a free-to-roam Raheem Sterling – than any overall upgrade in effectiveness.
There are those who doubt whether there is any oxygen left from the intoxicating charge to take the title race to its last day in 2014, in which case few could be more suitable than the Canaries to put the matter to the test.
Suárez is long gone now, Sterling shortly gone, Sturridge only nearing a return after a year on the sidelines. To lose your two main strikers unexpectedly cannot have been easy to deal with, though that was last season’s excuse and Suárez’s departure was not exactly unexpected.
Liverpool received good money in return, as they did for Sterling, and replacements have been bought. The problem appears to have been, at least in the case of Mario Balotelli and Rickie Lambert, that the replacements soon needed replacing.
Adam Lallana, Dejan Lovren and Lazar Markovic have hardly nailed down places in the starting lineup either, and already Roberto Firmino is beginning to look as though he might need a lot more time to adapt to the Premier League than his £29m fee would suggest.
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