As I sat and wondered what I should take the time to write, I ran through a load of ideas in my head. I could write on differentials, possibly captain choices, price changes or even the pros and cons of investing heavy in the defence. They all seemed like good choices bearing in mind that this is a fantasy help site. However I never enjoy following trends or conforming to anything when it is FPL related, except for one thing, captaining Suarez. Perhaps the most polarizing figure in the last several years, he certainly had his many detractors. I for one liked him…wait did I just say that? Well perhaps it would be fair to say that I like certain things about him. Obviously there were things I found appalling, but his skill level on the pitch was not one of them. The nibbling on people and diving, I for the most part found a bit funny. Perhaps I have a weird sense of humour or just simply enjoy being around cheating cannibals.

I will now attempt to look through how Liverpool have fared with him and without him over the last two seasons. I will also include the 5 games he was suspended for when Ivanovic shoved his arm into his mouth. With Luis we had a player who we could hand the armband to on a weekly basis and on top of that his presence seemingly made other Liverpool players better assets in FPL. Among his many accomplishments last season here is a small list of them.

· 295 points in FPL (Record)

· 30 goals and 25 assists with 40 bonus points as the cream on top.

· Had a goal or assist in all but 6 of his games.

· Scored double digits in 13 games.

· Did not bite anyone (during the EPL season)

But it wasn’t just what he did for himself and our FPL teams; a glance at his former mates shows a heavy downward trend. As a team Liverpool in the last two seasons only won 7 games out of 16, while drawing 3 and losing 6 when Suarez was not present. When the Uruguayan was around they won 23 of 33 and drew 5 and lost 5. Liverpool won 50% of the points available when he did not participate and 75% when he did. If you look at the goals scored over the last two seasons. You will find that the Merseysiders have averaged 1.18 goals per game without Suarez and 2.91 with him. While all their struggles are evident, none are more so than Gerrard when we compare his FPL production, with and without Suarez. Stevie G. averaged 3.6 points per game when Suarez was out of the picture. With him he put in a strong 6.3 points per game. A look back at last season shows that Gerrard was able to score or assist in 17 of 21 game-weeks immediately after the Uruguayan was reinstated. He was only able to accomplish that in 3 of 16 games without him over the last 2 seasons. A big part of that are the penalties it can be said. Last year they were granted 12 opportunities in the 33 games with Suarez. In the 16 without him they have been given one. Gerrard scored ten goals from the spot last season and that is a big miss for his point scoring potential. Obviously we can’t attribute all the earning of pens to Suarez, but we can certainly see the correlation. Sturridge is also affected to a degree by the absence of his S&S partner; nowhere near the degree of Gerrard, but there is still a noticeable 1.9 PPG difference. So although you would think that Daniel would be a better asset by himself as the primary striker, that has certainly not been the case when looking through the last two seasons.

Those are some of the figures for his former mates, but what about our FPL teams? How have they been affected? Well one look at his output from last season says that it would be nice to have all those points. Heck even if I only counted his points through GW11 last season where he missed the first 5 weeks, he would still be in fifth place in points already this season with 64. Noticeably already ahead of players like Siggy, Cesc and Costa. That though is only looking at his first 6 games. If we extend it out a bit further we see that he scored double digits in 8 of his first 12 games. Let’s take the current run of Alexis Sanchez with an amazing 54 points in the last 4 weeks. When compared to Suarez and his best 4 game-week run, we find that the former king of FPL outscored him by 23 points with an astonishing 77 points during a 4 week run last season. Suarez finished with the top score for a single GW 6 times last season, including a run of 4 straight. No one has managed to notch a second top GW score this season, much less put back to back top scores together. How terrifying was the mad genius last year? Just think if we were to grab Kun’s 4 goal game this season (19 points that week) he still wouldn’t crack Suarez’s top 3 scores. Sanchez & Kun are on pace to finish with 272 points over 38 games, if Suarez would have had 38 games he would have finished with approximately 340 points. That is about 1.8 more points per game on average.

I think that by now I have proven what a remarkable FPL asset he was, but most of you already knew that. One part of me is happy he is gone. It does lead to more choices and bigger disparity in scores instead of everyone being bunched up because we all have the same captain. But I do miss the magic he provided on the pitch. I particularly missed the feeling of DID I JUST SEE WHAT I THINK I JUST SAW!! Even if that included diving next to the Everton bench (which was hilarious) after a goal to get back at Moyes or an occasional nibble on an unsuspecting arm. I am no Liverpool fan; in fact I am known to have quite a few laughs at their expense. However I do wish he was still with them and chants of “We’re gonna win the League” were alive and well. As it is probable that we will never see him in FPL again there is only one last thing I can say to him.

Fangs for the memories!