Suarez a long-range YouTube sensation

It had to happen sometime, I suppose: Luis Suarez getting the headlines for the one thing he is actually paid to do...

World Cup handballs, South American semantics over racist taunt allegations and team-mates warming up in matching T-shirts of silent support; the Uruguayan is destined to remain a figure opposition fans can’t help but target.

It was ever the case at Carrow Road, where Suarez also tried to con referee Mark Halsey into awarding a penalty with a ridiculous dive. The bile, the vitriol and the chanting all spilled out from the mouths of the normally placid people of Norfolk.

Yet this time none of it really mattered. The quality of Suarez’s finishing was the only real talking point as he netted his first hat-trick in a red shirt.

Goals one and two, which arrived in the space of four first-half minutes, were quality finishes that cashed in on lower league defending but the third was one to savour for many a season — a lob over the head of goalkeeper John Ruddy from all of 50 yards.

An instant YouTube classic worthy of a few million hits.

Was it in fact the best he had ever scored?

“I don’t know,” he said. “It was a nice goal, a great goal but I think I’ve scored some other good goals as well.

“It was very special to get my first hat-trick for Liverpool but more important that the team won.”

It was also the perfect way to warm up for the FA Cup final on Saturday, although Kenny Dalglish’s squad must also negotiate their way unscathed through a home league fixture with Fulham tomorrow night.

Andy Carroll did not feature in this game because of a groin injury and will probably be kept in storage until Wembley, where the Chelsea defence is unlikely to be quite as generous as Norwich pairing Elliott Ward and Ryan Bennett.

Both were given a torrid time by Suarez and both resorted to desperate physical measures. Suarez simply shrugged it off.

As he did Ward for two of the goals, including the 50-yarder. It is difficult to imagine John Terry, the only man currently out-doing Suarez in the unwanted headline-generating stakes, dissolving in mid-tackle the way journeyman Ward did on both occasions.

The three goals took Suarez’s Premier League tally for the season to 11.

Which is not a particularly impressive tally for a man hailed as a “fantastic footballer” by Dalglish.

Steven Fletcher, of already-relegated Wolves, has netted as many and Norwich’s own top scorer Grant Holt, surprisingly left on the bench until the final 15 minutes, has 13, including one at Anfield in a 1-1 draw in October.

Dalglish was truculent as ever on the subject, however. “Other people can catalogue his performances, and put them in level of importance, but we’re just delighted that we have him playing for us,” he said.

Could we soon be talking about the Suarez final then? “I’m no clairvoyant,” grunted Dalglish unhelpfully.

Indeed not, Kenny. Otherwise you wouldn’t have bought Carroll...