Liverpool 0 Stoke 0: Fall guy Suarez Kops it as dive even has his own fans laughing

It says much for the underwhelming nature of this afternoon that one of the most dramatic acts was saved until 30 minutes after the final whistle.

Asked for the second time about Luis Suarez’s apparent dive in the Stoke penalty area 15 minutes from time, visiting manager Tony Pulis invited the assembled media to draw their own conclusions and swept suddenly from the room rather like the diva we all know he isn’t.

In the moments beforehand, however, Pulis had already said enough. ‘I don’t know how many times he has fallen over but the one in the penalty box is an embarrassment and how he has not been booked I just don’t know. Retrospective decisions are made on a Monday by the FA and they should be looking at this. Give him three games and he will stop falling over.

‘He puts pressure on the referee and every time he goes down you’ve got 40,000 Liverpool fans getting after the ref and I don’t think that’s right.’ Pulis had a point.

On another difficult afternoon for
Brendan Rodgers’ Liverpool, Suarez had given everything. Indeed he
should have been awarded a penalty when Robert Huth shoved him in the
back with a handful of minutes remaining.

Who is ever going to award the
Uruguayan anything when he falls over in the manner he did when
challenged by Marc Wilson 10 minutes earlier? As acts of simulation go
it wasn’t even well executed. It was so obvious that even some of the
home supporters chuckled.

‘I didn’t see it,’ said Rodgers
afterwards. ‘Whatever Luis does will always be a problem, whether it’s
with the media or refs, but I thought he was terrific today.’

One imagines that when Rodgers does
see the incident on playback, he may speak to Suarez. The Liverpool
manager has enough to contend with as he tries to get his team’s season
off the ground.

Despite his team scoring five at
Norwich a week earlier, Rodgers can’t find a Barclays Premier League win
in front of the Kop and his team rarely looked like delivering one
here. One step forward, two steps back.

Frustration: Suarez was feeling hard done by after being brought down

This was a poor game. Liverpool struck the frame of the goal four times and Stoke had six players booked.

To suggest that Liverpool were
unfortunate and Stoke too physical would not be accurate, though. The
home team were no more deserving of three points than the visitors,
while referee Lee Mason fell into the trap of believing that every time
Pulis’s team make a tackle it had to be a foul.

Stoke were the happier side at full
time. Having enjoyed the better of the possession in the first
half-hour, they were gradually pushed back by Liverpool but looked
fairly comfortable.

Making his point: Liverpool skipper Steven Gerrard has a word with referee Lee Mason

This unfamiliar-looking Liverpool
team has some promising footballers in it. Joe Allen looks a good
player, even in a modest team, but they rely too heavily on Steven
Gerrard and Suarez for energy and drive.

Rodgers is still being hampered by
Liverpool’s peculiar conclusion to the summer transfer window. His squad
looks desperately thin and he will be glad to see January.

Stoke, on the other hand, continue to
work to a clear strategy. They were very much in this game from the
first moment to the last.

Remember: Peter Crouch was one of two former Liverpool players in the Stoke starting XI

Rodgers likes to encourage his
players to pass the ball inside their own half but Stoke’s energetic
pressing made that difficult and Liverpool goalkeeper Pepe Reina twice
had to save in the first half, from Charlie Adam and Michael Kightly,
when his back four gave away possession.

In the first half Liverpool found it
hard to keep possession long enough to develop any momentum. Gerrard
brought the best from Asmir Begovic in the Stoke goal in the 27th minute
while Daniel Agger poked a chipped pass from Suso on to the outside of
the far post two minutes later.

It wasn’t until the second half that
Liverpool caused Stoke sustained problems. Twice full back Glen Johnson
came close — once when working Begovic from distance and again when
nudging a shot over the bar.

Occasionally, the game threatened to
boil over. Liverpool were becoming agitated by what they thought was
Stoke’s reliance on the physical, while Suarez’s dive did little for the
atmosphere or his reputation.