EPL Player of the weekend: Luis Suarez

Luis Suarez

The weekend’s Premier League action featured 23 goals, one red card, three penalties and one hat-trick. That one hat-trick was at Anfield where Liverpool demolished West Bromwich Albion 4-1 and the star of the show was Luis Suarez. The Uruguayan has quickly put his summer troubles behind him and shot up the scorers’ charts in England, now trailing his team-mate Daniel Sturridge by just two goals.

Since his return from a 10-match ban, Suarez has scored six goals in four Premier League matches, but his masterclass against West Brom was easily his best performance so far this season.

The forward’s performances have gradually improved which showed in his first two goals on Saturday afternoon. After picking the ball up from Kolo Toure inside West Brom’s half, Suarez turned and charged towards Jonas Olsson, nutmegged the tall defender and smashed the ball low past Boaz Myhill.

His second was even more majestic if not mind-boggling. Aly Cissokho ran onto Suarez’s pass to the left and clipped the ball back across towards the Uruguayan who headed the ball into the top left-hand corner from the edge of the penalty area. A truly sublime finish.

His third was another header. This time it was much easier. Steven Gerrard swung a free kick into the penalty area and Suarez made contact with it to send the ball floating into the top corner at the Kop end.

He scored his three goals from eight shots; five on target and three off and averaged a pass accuracy of 79%, completing 32 of 41 passes whilst also making three key passes – the joint fourth best in the division this weekend.

Using Squawka’s Performance Score to compare Suarez against the rest of the league this weekend, he was head and shoulders above everyone else. His attacking score of 119 was 54 points ahead of Jay Rodriguez, who finished in second place. In terms of overall Performance Score, Suarez finished top, 42 points ahead of his Liverpool strike partner Daniel Sturridge and Everton centre half, Phil Jagielka.

Suarez caused West Brom a lot of problems in their third of the pitch. He completed 50% of his take ons, beating his man five times from an attempted 10 – a usually high number from the Uruguayan. Eight of the attempted 10 were from in or around West Brom’s penalty area which shows how much of a nuisance he became for the Baggies.

Suarez’s hat-trick was his fourth for Liverpool and first at Anfield. He now averages a hat-trick every 20.6 matches which is better than the 46 other players to have scored four or more hat-tricks in the Premier League.

A truly fantastic performance capped off with three superbly taken goals, Luis Suarez is Squawka’s Premier League Player of the Weekend.