Suarez advances case for top gong

Wigan 0 Liverpool 4

Suarez lives his life against the backdrop of last season’s eight-match ban for racially abusing Manchester United’s Patrice Evra and constant criticism from other fans and managers about his willingness to hit the deck easily and appeal for absolutely anything.

There are solid arguments in the favour of Tottenham’s outstanding winger Gareth Bale and Manchester United striker Robin van Persie, whose goals have helped decide the title race.

However, after Suarez took his tally to 21 league goals with a hat-trick against Wigan — becoming just the third Liverpool player after Robbie Fowler and Fernando Torres to score 20 goals in a season in the Premier League era — the clamour continues to grow for the Uruguayan.

Suarez is that winning mix of quality and graft and when he cuts in from the flank or races on to a through ball, he is almost unstoppable.

However, Suarez’s manager Brendan Rodgers acknowledges the negative perceptions could harm the Uruguayan’s cause.

“I am not sure. I think his performances this season... everyone understands his passion and he has got himself into trouble a couple of times,” Rodgers said.

“But I don’t think there is anyone, when you come away and judge the player of the season on performance level and goals, then I can’t see how you can not look any further than him and I would hope other people will do that, certainly the professionals within the game.

“He is a class act and a genuine world-class player.”

The challenge for Liverpool is now to make their seasons about more than pushing such an individual cause and show the kind of consistency Suarez has been able to demonstrate.

Saturday’s win was just the third occasion that Rodgers’ side have managed consecutive league wins all season and that is why they are still so far away from the Champions League places despite improving since the turn of the year.

Even without Daniel Sturridge, absent with a thigh problem, there was a real bite to this display.

It is wrong to make a snap judgement but Philippe Coutinho, the 20-year-old Brazilian who joined from Inter Milan for €9.8m in January, is already looking a bargain.

Coutinho acknowledges he must bulk up to prove a success in England but after scoring in his first start in the 5-0 thrashing of Swansea, he laid on Liverpool’s first two goals at the DW Stadium.

After he was picked out by a long Pepe Reina clearance, Coutinho skipped inside Emmerson Boyce before crossing for Downing to head in and he carved Wigan open with a clever pass that allowed Suarez to guide a shot past Ali Al Habsi.

Suarez added another before the break when his free-kick deflected in off Shaun Maloney and added the fourth, squeezing between Al Habsi’s legs after being played through by Glen Johnson.

Rodgers can see progress. “If you break the season into quarters, we had a difficult first with lots of application. In the second we got better, in the third we have kicked on again,” he added.

“The players have a confidence in the system as we go into the last period. Three of the four goals were built out from behind, playing through quickly with fast football.

“You saw the intensity of how the players pressed the game and blocked the spaces. Tactically, I thought they were terrific but it just doesn’t happen with a click of the fingers.”

It never was going to after 23 years without a title but the case, for Suarez and for Liverpool, is growing all the more convincing.