Transfer talk shouldn’t overshadow Luis Suarez’s brilliance

There has been much speculation about Luis Suarez’s future at Barcelona this season, but his record is remarkable.

This season has been ripe with talk of an incoming replacement for Luis Suarez. At 32, the Uruguayan isn’t getting any younger. Given that another number 9 is currently one of the few holes in the Barcelona squad, it’s no surprise the club’s board is looking at options. And so perhaps this is an appropriate moment to reflect on just how good Suarez has been for Barcelona.

Since switching Merseyside for the east coast of Spain, Suarez has been a consistent goal threat in La Liga, clocking up an impressive tally of 124 league goals in just 143 league starts, an average of 0.79 goals per 90 minutes. Barring his very first season in Catalonia, where he only managed 16, Suarez has broken the 20-goal mark consistently over his five year stint in Spain, a tally that would have once won the top scorers crown in Spain before Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo came along. Nonetheless, that didn’t stop the 32-year old from snatching a Pichichi.

In 2015-16, Suarez enjoyed the best season of his career so far, scoring 40 goals to take Spain’s top scorer’s prize and the European Golden Boot. It was just the fifth time in the history of La Liga that a player had scored 40 or more goals. Suarez is the only player not named Ronaldo or Messi to do it. Out of his 40 league goals, 15 came in the last five matchdays of that season, following a stretch of three consecutive losses that nearly put the Catalan’s league title in jeopardy. Barcelona scored 24 goals in those final five games, Suarez either scoring or assisting all but five of them.

Showing up on the big occasion has been one the Uruguayan’s defining traits at Barcelona. He has scored in every final he could play in with the Blaugrana. He has scored nine league goals in the nine league Clasicos he’s played in, equalling Cristiano Ronaldo’s tally. In October, he became the first Barcelona player other than Messi to score a hat-trick in El Clasico since Romario in 1994. Against Atletico Madrid, Real Madrid and Valencia, Suarez has scored 17 goals in 26 appearances.

Suarez has finished with the highest NPxG (non-penalty expected goals) in the league for the last three seasons, but his abilities stretch beyond mere goalscoring. At the beginning of October, Suarez surpassed Dani Alves as the player with the most assists to Messi. He finished 2018 with the most league assists in a calendar year and has recorded over 10 assists in every season he has played with Barcelona so far.

Suarez has finished among the top three assist-makers in La Liga every season barring his first. He had the most assists in the league during 2015-16, meaning he contributed to a stunning 41 percent of Barcelona’s league goals that year. Among those who have finished in the top 10 for assists in La Liga over the past five years, only Messi, Neymar and Ronaldo have posted similar or better scoring figures than Suarez.

Outside of Messi and Ronaldo, Suarez has been La Liga’s best player, and he shows no sign of slowing down despite his age. After scoring just twice in his first eight matches, the Uruguayan made his third best goalscoring start in a Blaugrana shirt with 14 goals in 19 games. He’s also managed five assists, bringing his overall league assist tally to 60 — 0.38 assists per 90 minutes.

The only competition in which Suarez has shown signs of decline is the Champions League. The 32-year-old has never been as good in Europe, his best campaign coming in 2015-16, when he had eight goals in nine matches.

Since then, his production in the Champions League has seen a marked decline. He has only scored four goals in his last 17 matches in Europe, though he’s also managed eight assists in that time.

While it’s sensible for Barcelona to be considering a younger replacement for Suarez this summer, his recent form suggests he won’t be hobbling off to the bench without a fight for the starting spot next season. Even if he is benched or sold on, his successor will struggle to replicate both the all-round brilliance of Suarez’s game and the consistency at which the Uruguayan has been able to play over the last five years.