WEST BROMWICH, ENGLAND // Kenny Dalglish, the Liverpool manager, hailed another star performance from Luis Suarez in their 2-0 win at West Brom and said that he is running out of superlatives to describe the Uruguayan striker.
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Suarez won the penalty which was coverted by Charlie Adam and then set up Andy Carroll for the second — his fifth in 21 appearances for the Reds since his £35 million (Dh207.4m) move in January.
"Luis is a fantastic footballer. For us, there were a lot of excellent performances out there," Dalglish said as his team climb to fifth spot in the English Premier League. "There was not one player that could be disappointed with their performance.
"But within the group, there will be people who excel a little bit more than others. For us, it seems to be Luis quite often. He and Andy haven't played together that often.
"I thought today they played really well together. I'm sure everyone in our squad is appreciative of what Luis does but I'm sure he is delighted with them as well.
"I am running out of superlatives to describe him."
Albion players were incensed with the penalty award but Dalglish claimed he had not seen it.
"I'm going to sound like Arsene [Wenger]. I never saw it from where I was standing and I haven't seen any replays. I'm not trying to be evasive or duck the question. There was also a big appeal from our lads for a handball [by Steven Reid] that we never got."
Liverpool were without Steven Gerrard, the captain, with an ankle infection, but Dalglish is unsure at this stage about the severity of the problem and said they will know more tomorrow or Tuesday and whether he will be fit for England duty against Spain and Sweden.
"Will he be fit for England? I haven't got a clue," Dalglish said. "It's nothing to do with any injuries before, it's an infection. I suppose it's like having an abscess on your mouth."
Roy Hodgson, the West Brom manager, was unhappy with the penalty but admitted his side's performance was below par.
"It [the penalty] didn't help. I think the ref like the rest of us didn't see anything — but the linesman did and the ref decided to take the linesman's advice," he said.
"It was a situation where our defender is entitled to screen the ball to clear it and should be allowed to do so but apparently it was awarded.
"It meant a difficult task became that much more difficult."
Hodgson said his team did not play particularly well yesterday, but the penalty certainly did not help.
"I don't want to bleating about it. Sometimes decisions go your way, sometimes they don't but decisions like that affect results," he said.
"But I'm not blaming the ref totally for our defeat because we didn't do enough to win the game."