Liverpool legend Jamie Carragher has revealed that his former teammate Luis Suarez is partly to blame for the Reds' inability to win the Premier League title in the 2013/2014 season. The Uruguay missed a host of matches at the beginning of the campaign after being suspended in the previous season for biting Chelsea's Branislav Ivanovic.
Suarez, who finished the season as the PFA Player of the Year and the Golden Boot winner with his 31 goals, was served with the 10-match ban in April 2013, causing him to miss the first six matches of the subsequent campaign. During the period, his side recorded four wins, one draw and one defeat.
Despite the strong start, Brendan Rodgers' Liverpool side were not able to stage a commanding finish and eventually lost out on winning the Premier League title to Manchester City by two points. In years past, what has epitomised the disappointment suffered by the Merseysiders is Steven Gerrard's infamous slip in the 2-0 defeat to Chelsea which ushered in the downward spiral.
However, Suarez's ex-colleague Carragher has stated that the Uruguayan's absence at the beginning of the season cost Liverpool the Premiership title in the long run. While recounting the Ivanovic incident on Sky Sports, he said: "I think Suarez scored late on, I wasn't aware of any of this but got back into the dressing room and then word comes in that Luis has bit Ivanovic. Someone asked him and he denied it.
"I think on that, that it cost Liverpool the league the next season.
"Suarez was banned for five or six games. Liverpool lost the league, I think, on goal difference. Suarez was the best player by a mile in the league, he scored almost every game. In the first four games he missed, Liverpool lost 1-0 to Southampton and drew at Swansea. They dropped five points.
"If Suarez is playing, they probably win both of them, but let's be conservative, you beat Southampton at home - you don't realise at the time, looking back now, and the season he had the next year, player of the year, football writers' player of the year, I think if he'd been playing in those games it would've been different."
