Steven Gerrard has named Luis Suarez as the best player he ever played alongside at Liverpool, ahead of former Chelsea forward Fernando Torres.
The former Liverpool skipper and current Aston Villa manager was talking to Gary Neville on The Overlap when he was asked to settle the debate between who was the better out of the two strikers.
Gerrard said: ‘I get asked this question all the time. They’re both phenomenal but I’d say Suarez just because he had everything.
‘I played with some top players – Xabi Alonso, Javier Mascherano, Torres – but Suarez was just different. No matter who you were playing you just had a feeling that he was going to win you the game, every game.’
Over the course of three-and-a-half years at Anfield, Suarez established himself as one of the world’s greatest strikers, scoring 82 goals in 133 games in all competitions.
Signed from Ajax in January 2011, with money gotten from Torres’ sale to Chelsea, little was known about the Uruguayan star back then, but that changed very quickly.
‘Within the first session, second session it was almost like he trained the way he played,’ Gerrard added.
‘I remember walking off one of the main sessions that we’ve done with Carra [Jamie Carragher] and me and Carra are like oh my god this fella’s got bundles, plenty. I remember him saying to me, “I don’t want to play against him every day,” he was that intense in training.
‘He could embarrass you, even with stuff that I don’t even think he knew he was doing. He was a ricochet merchant, he’d run over you, he’d dominate you, he’d bully you.’
Suarez’s time in England wasn’t without controversy, however, with the striker involved in a number of biting incidents and his time with Liverpool ended acrimoniously after he forced through a move to Barcelona against the wishes of Brendan Rodgers.
It proved to be a great decision, with the 35-year-old winning countless trophies at the Camp Nou, including the treble in 2015, before moving to Atletico Madrid in 2020 where he currently plays today.
Gerrard recalled the tough moments with Suarez, saying: ‘There were a few incidents that were tough. I tried to be a friend to him and advise him, I was a bit older than him obviously, a bit more experienced.
‘When he had the situation with Brendan Rodgers, I tried to be a bit of a go between but there’s certain situations where you’d have to back away and let him and his people deal with it themselves, not that I didn’t want to help him but sometimes the situation is bigger than it was.
‘But the guy I know and the character I know is different than the incidents that he’s had and I’m sure he’s matured a lot on the back of them experiences.’
