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• ‘It is a tough place to go [but] Luis is a strong character’
• Dalglish delighted to have Uruguayan back in the fold

The Liverpool defender Glen Johnson believes Luis Suárez’s strength of character will get him through the trial which awaits him at Old Trafford on Saturday.

The Uruguay international returned from his eight-match ban for racially abusing the Manchester United defender Patrice Evra as a substitute in Monday night’s goalless draw at home to Tottenham.

He certainly made his presence felt in a 24-minute cameo, getting booked for a challenge on Scott Parker and missing a late headed chance to win the game. However, the appreciative response from the Anfield crowd on his first appearance since Boxing Day will be replaced by a hostile atmosphere at the home of their arch rivals at the weekend.

But Johnson is confident that after being sidelined for six weeks the 25-year-old striker will be keen to focus on playing football again.

“It is a tough place to go Old Trafford. Luis is a strong character and he will try to let his football do the talking,” said the England international. “He is a fantastic player, he has had a long break now and hopefully he will be fresh and ready to put in a performance at the weekend. He is the sort of player we need in the team.”

Johnson’s team-mate Martin Kelly, who against Spurs made his first Premier League start since the now infamous United game at Anfield on 15 October, sees Suárez having a key part to play in the remainder of the season.

“The crowd gave us a lift when they saw Luis coming on and it’s fantastic to have him back,” said the 21-year-old. “He’ll be a big help for us over the next few weeks when we’ve got big games coming up and he’ll be there ready for the [Carling Cup] final.”

Kenny Dalglish, Suárez’s staunchest defender, risked reopening the row over his lengthy suspension when he stated after the match he did not think the striker should have been banned at all.

But he, more than anyone, was delighted to have the player available for selection again.

“We are pleased and encouraged he is back,” said the Scot. “Every time he gets the ball in and around the box expectation levels rise and it is just unfortunate we couldn’t get anything from it.”

Luis SuárezLiverpoolPremier League 2011-12
guardian.co.uk

The feline invader who delayed the game at Anfield on Monday night is not the first animal interlocutor to cause havoc on the pitch

There’s a cat on the pitch. Does he think it’s all over? It is meow! It says much for the insipid nature of the football at Anfield on Monday night that one of the highlights of the evening was the feline pitch invasion that briefly delayed the game after 12 minutes.

The intrepid tabby is far from the first animal interlocutor to have stopped a game in full flow. An Old Firm game in November 1996 was halted by a fox in the box, who made quick his or her escape. “We were very impressed with the pace of the fox,” said Celtic public relations manager Peter McLean. “It still hasn’t been caught. We don’t know how it got in and how it escaped. We have even been given the brush-off by its agent.”

Real Madrid’s game against Betis at the Bernabéu in 1996-97 was delayed by a rabbit presumably thrown into the fray from the terraces. Real’s Carlos Secretatio was quick enough to catch it. “Secretario may or may be not a good player,” said TV commentator Arsénio Iglesias at the time, “but he is indeed a great hunter.”

But the animal kingdom and football are not always comfortable bed fellows. In November 1970 the Brentford goalkeeper Chic Brodie had his career ended after a dog on the pitch ran into him, shattering his kneecap. “The dog might have been a small one, but it just happened to be a solid one,” Brodie later reflected.

And as Torquay United, trailing to 2-1 to Crewe, stared down the barrel of relegation on the final day of the 1986-87 season a police dog named Bryn, who had been patrolling the touchline with his handler, bit Torquay’s Jim McNichol on the upper thigh. It took four minutes for play to restart after the injury and in the fourth minute of stoppage time United scored the goal that kept them in the Football League.

These and many more stories are recounted in our Knowledge archive – here and here.

LiverpoolPremier LeagueJohn Ashdown
guardian.co.uk

Uruguayan had to wait while his manager focuses on rehabilitating the £35m striker

The masks were ready, the T-Shirts were on sale again outside Anfield and Liverpool prepared to make up for lost time with Luis Suárez on his first appearance since commencing a nine-match Football Association ban last year for improper conduct and racially abusing Patrice Evra. Then the team-sheets landed and changed the script from the rehabilitation of the Uruguay international to that of Andy Carroll. It is a process the former Newcastle United man, at least, has seized

Suárez being Suárez, he found a central role in the only controversy of an incident-lacking draw against Tottenham Hotspur with a kick into the chest of Scott Parker, a foul more clumsy that malicious and which earned a yellow card from referee Michael Oliver four minutes after he had taken to the field. He also squandered a glorious chance to win the game late on when he planted a free header from a Steven Gerrard free-kick straight into the grateful arms of Brad Friedel.

There were similar frustrations for Carroll as he wasted a clear opening from Martin Kelly’s cross and headed just over in the closing stages. But given the starting point in his Liverpool career when Suárez last started a game on Boxing Day, and his all-round contribution against Spurs, another encouraging display from Carroll augured well for Kenny Dalglish as Liverpool challenge on three fronts.

There is no disputing Suárez’s pre-eminent position among Liverpool strikers this season but Dalglish was justified in not granting special dispensation to the Uruguayan after he had spent exactly six weeks stewing on the sidelines. Like any other player, Suárez had to earn the right to win back his place and not one among Carroll, Dirk Kuyt and Craig Bellamy deserved to make way for Liverpool’s headline-maker-in-chief, the focus of the television cameramen as soon as he entered the pitch for the substitutes’ warm-up.

A little over two weeks ago, when a 3-1 defeat at Bolton Wanderers prompted a withering condemnation from their manager, it appeared the loss of Suárez had hurt Liverpool as gravely as they feared when his eight-match suspension began and that a return to the starting line-up would be automatic. Only Bellamy had shown form worthy of a side with aspirations of qualifying for the Champions League but, belatedly, Carroll and Kuyt made crucial contributions to a response that ended Manchester’s interest in domestic cup competition for the season, revived Liverpool’s campaign and maintained that form in the comfortable win at Wolverhampton Wanderers last Tuesday when all three featured on the score-sheet.

Even so, it would have come as a relief to Carroll to retain the faith of his manager and it was an important call from Dalglish to persist with the £35m striker despite the availability of Suárez. Being a young, strapping centre-forward, and one criticised for having an alleged laissez-faire approach to the game, does not make Carroll immune from a damaging loss of confidence, as his performances had showed prior to the influential display in the FA