Dalglish hails 'fantastic' Suarez

Posted Sunday, October 30, 2011 by ESPN

Kenny Dalglish hailed another star performance from Liverpool striker Luis Suarez in the 2-0 win at West Brom.

But the Liverpool manager admitted: "I am running out of superlatives to describe him."

The Uruguayan international won the penalty for the opener from Charlie Adam and then set up Andy Carroll for the second - his fifth in 21 appearances for the Reds since his £35million move.

Victory enabled the Reds to climb to fifth spot in the Barclays Premier League.

Dalglish said: "Luis is a fantastic footballer. For us, there were a lot of excellent performances out there.

"There was not one player that could be disappointed with their performance.

"But within the group, there will be people who excel a little bit more than others.

"For us, it seems to be Luis quite often. He and Andy haven't played together that often.

"I thought they played really well together. I'm sure everyone in our squad is appreciative of what Luis does but I'm sure he is delighted with them as well."

Albion players were incensed with the penalty award but Dalglish claimed he had not seen it.

He said: "I'm going to sound like Arsene (Wenger). I never saw it from where I was standing and I haven't seen any replays.

"I'm not trying to be evasive or duck the question. There was also a big appeal from our lads for a handball (by Steven Reid) that we never got."

Liverpool were without skipper Steven Gerrard with an ankle infection but Dalglish is unsure at this stage about the severity of the problem and whether he will be fit for England duty against Spain and Sweden.

He said: "Steven Gerrard has got an infection in his ankle. Steven was in our minds for the game. It just flared up.

"We are off Sunday, we will be back in Monday or Tuesday, so we can be more accurate next week than we can be just now.

"We are not going to mislead anyone. We will know better on Monday or Tuesday.

"Will he be fit for England? I haven't got a clue. It's nothing to do with any injuries before, it's an infection.

"I suppose it's like having an abscess on your mouth."

Baggies boss Roy Hodgson was unhappy with the penalty but admitted his side's performance was below par.

He said: "It (the penalty) didn't help. I think the ref like the rest of us didn't see anything - but the linesman did and the ref decided to take the linesman's advice.

"It was a situation where our defender is entitled to screen the ball to clear it and should be allowed to do so but apparently it was awarded.

"It meant a difficult task became that much more difficult.

"I don't think we played as well as we have been doing but it would have been nice to have a chance to play at 0-0 for longer.

"You can do without having to play with that handicap.

"I don't want to bleating about it. Sometimes decisions go your way, sometimes they don't but decisions like that affect results.

"But I'm not blaming the ref totally for our defeat because we didn't do enough to win the game."