Dalglish hails another ‘tremendous’ Suarez display

KENNY DALGLISH could not hide his admiration for striker Luis Suarez after the Uruguayan international put a difficult week behind him to produce another menacing performance.

Liverpool manager Dalglish, and Suarez, have been made to wait until Tuesday at the earliest as the Football Association deliberate in the case between the forward and Manchester United defender Patrice Evra.

Last week’s hearing, which heard claims Suarez used derogatory language in a confrontation during a match at Anfield on October 15, started on Wednesday, and a verdict had been expected on Friday.

But the Independent Regulatory Commission continued their investigation into the weekend and Dalglish was in no mood to fan the flames on Sunday night.

He said: “I can’t comment on it. It’s not my choice not to comment but I’m afraid I wouldn’t like to prejudice anything.

“We’ve been respectful all the way through and I don’t think at this stage we would want to be accused of losing that respect.

“But Luis was tremendous. He has been sat in a hotel room for three days and only trained Tuesday and Friday but to produce a performance like that speaks volumes for the man.”

Liverpool secured their fifth away win of the season at Aston Villa, finally gifting Dalglish his first victory at the venue in seven attempts.

Goals from Craig Bellamy and Martin Skrtel piled on the problems for Alex McLeish, the Villa manager, and he also had to endure an excellent performance from England international Stewart Downing.

The winger quit Villa for £20m in the summer and Dalglish paid tribute to Downing for beating the terrace critics.

He said: “If Stewart had a tough reception, there then people must be living a sheltered life. He was excellent so obviously it [the abuse] worked.

“I think it’s sad, they would have done better to have given support to their own players because it wasn’t going to upset Stewart.”

Despite the first-half goals from Bellamy and Skrtel, Liverpool still hold the peculiar statistic of hitting the woodwork 17 times this season.

Suarez struck the post twice in the second period with a pair of sublime efforts and Dalglish was typically unmoved by the misfortune.

He said: “We can solve that problem if we can shave a couple of inches off the post. We’ll keep trying because the harder you try, the luckier you become. Maybe one day we’ll hit the bar and it will end up going in.

“We’ve got a really good spirit in the dressing room and it shows on the pitch. We’ve had a shut-out, scored two goals to increase our goals and points tally and increased the number of times we’ve hit the woodwork as well!”