Suarez V Bale

Suarez V Bale

Liverpool against Tottenham Hotspur is the stand-out Premiership fixture this weekend with both teams chasing European football for next season.

But all eyes will be on the two main men, Liverpool’s Luis Suarez and Tottenham’s Gareth Bale who have been in scintillating form this season and both are contenders for this year’s Player Of The Year award.

Suarez has almost single-handedly hauled Liverpool up the league table this season with his goals tally. While Gareth Bale has just got better and better this season and has been in prolific goal scoring form too.

In comparing the two players, firstly looking at their goals in the Premier League, Suarez has scored 21 goals in 27 games and Bale has scored 16 goals in 24 games.

However, Bale has been in devastating form since the turn of the year, he has scored 7 goals in 7 games since New Year’s Day.

But Suarez has scored 8 goals in 8 League games in that time.

Bale’s game has changed this season from a provider to a goal scorer. This selfish streak Bale has installed in his game means that Suarez has more assists for teammates than Bale. Suarez has created 78 chances for other players, so far this season, while Bale has created 57.

The pair are neck and neck with 54 efforts on target apiece. Both have a conversion rate of around 1 goal in every 5 efforts.

The criticism aimed at both players has been for “diving”. The criticism is fair as both have a history of going to ground too easily. But where Bale picked up a recent booking for diving against Inter Milan, Suarez has changed his game and looks more reluctant to go to ground.

Suarez would get my vote for the Player Of The Year award between these two players, although there is obviously other candidates for the award. But Suarez has carried Liverpool for most of the season when he was at times their only recognised striker and his form has continued throughout the whole season where Bale’s form has just really caught fire since the turn of the year.

The statistics show that both are in unstoppable form at the moment and Sunday’s match looks like being an exciting contest.

Bale’s lightning pace will be difficult for Liverpool’s defence to stop, especially as they are not the quickest at the back, especially if Carragher is playing. Bale’s movement and ability to drop deep to gain possession will be a problem and this where I think Lucas will be crucial to Liverpool’s success of stopping the danger man. Lucas is a great reader of the game, although not the quickest, but his protection of the defence will be very important to snuff out the danger from Bale.

Spurs are not a one man team but to stop Bale will give Liverpool a great chance of winning the match. But Spurs will have big problems too on Sunday trying to stop Suarez. Suarez really is a fox in the box and comes alive inside the penalty area. His trickery to get past defenders in tight situations is bamboozling at times and for defenders he is a nightmare to play against.

Like Spurs, Liverpool are not a one man team like they seemed to be earlier in the season. Suarez has the talents of Gerrard, Sturridge and now the young Coutinho to support him in attack as Liverpool pose a dangerous attacking threat since the arrival of Sturridge and Coutinho in January.

Spurs have a good recent record against Liverpool but the team from Anfield will want to correct that on Sunday.

But the focus will be on Suarez and Bale and I’m sure they will both feature prominently in the game and will have a big influence on the result.

So may the best man win.