Suarez is a violent man with a screw loose. There's no way on earth he's always been well balanced and a decent human being off the pitch. I'd be astonished if that's the case. Maybe he's learned to become that way as he's got older but if he doesn't have some sort of history of violence or poor behaviour in his past I'd be very surprised. It's one thing controlling yourself when you don't have adrenaline coursing through your veins, but on the pitch you see what he's really like. There's competing and a burning desire to win - he has that for sure and it's admirable - and then there's being a violent, dangerous thug that has no problem with hurting people on a game by game basis - that's despicable.

Rex wrote:

Clrnc wrote:

Most top players has a vicious side in them. Ronaldo, Ibra, Neymar, Higuain etc. They have a competitive streak because they want to win badly. I would take them every time as compared to someone like Walcott's "nice" temperament.

Jed wrote:

We had plenty of bastards in our team. Vieira, Keown, Bergkamp, Lauren, Lehmann. Even the likes of Pires could dish it out when needed. No gooner ever complained.

They were winners and never let an opponent rest.

Now we have people like Theo who won't hurt a fly and won't win you anything.

Suarez is a cunt but guess what he's also a winner and Barcelona won't swap him with anyone, simples.

I can't believe the excuses that are being made for an absolute trash, piece of shit, sad excuse for a human being like Bitey. It is absolutely ridiculous IMO to compare anything any of those other players were/are doing to the shit Bitey is known for and then trying to explain it away with 'he is a winner'. How much of a winner was he at Liverpool by the way? Uruguay? It isn't like he transformed a shit Barcelona side into this juggernaut we are now seeing; they are sort of used to winning shit on a regular basis there.

Vieira spat on an opponent, Bergkamp elbowed several people on the pitch, Henry dove and handballed his way to the World Cup, Wrighty deliberately tried to hurt Schmeichel (by his own admission), Keown went after Van Horseface, etc.

All of the aforementioned are considered legends by every Arsenal fan.

Why is Suarez a 'sad excuse for a human being' yet none of the aforementioned is considered as such?

All footballers cheat, no one's even going to bother disputing that, but are you really going to make the argument that Suarez is just as likely to cheat and also be physically aggressive as anyone else? Or are you willing to accept that Suarez's bad behaviour is more frequent that most footballers - particularly a few years ago.

Suarez's antics got to the point that he was actually offered anger management classes by Liverpool/the PFA - that's not normal - and clearly marks him out from the rest of the players you've listed. Moreover, Suarez has been cautioned for the same extreme behaviour at least three times i.e. he has bitten an opponent on a football pitch three times in the career. That's not a mark of a winner - the fact that he's a good player is a coincidence - and trying to spin it any other way makes you look bad.

Suarez is a cunt, as are many players including a few that have played for us.

The level of disgust shown at him on here is pretty strange considering we haven't exactly had a team of angels turning out for us over the years.

Personally, I don't honestly give two shits about a footballer's character. That's their own business. As long as they're delivering on the pitch I couldn't careless about the rest. Unless you're actually related to them - then it's a different matter.

Suarez is just like Costa. A lunatic. Throw Pepe into that mix as well. Men who are not well. To their credit, they've all managed to be successful despite their madness. Maybe it even drives them.

Jed wrote:

Suarez is a cunt, as are many players including a few that have played for us.

The level of disgust shown at him on here is pretty strange considering we haven't exactly had a team of angels turning out for us over the years.

Personally, I don't honestly give two shits about a footballer's character. That's their own business. As long as they're delivering on the pitch I couldn't careless about the rest. Unless you're actually related to them - then it's a different matter.

You've just answered your own question there. Some people take a black and white approach to the whole thing, some people have a more nuanced view.

Although you don't need to be that nuanced to see that Suarez is a lot closer to the Roy Keane/Patrick Vieira/Joey Barton end of the spectrum than the 95% of the other top footballers out there.

Jed, on top of all the other stuff Suarez regularly does on the pitch, he was also suspended for a few months for racially abusing another player. I love football in general and I love Arsenal in particular. For me it is impossible to draw the line you seem to be able to do, and things like these matter to me. To me, a player's character certainly matters, and that's why I never, ever wanted Bitey to play for us despite him being a top class footballer. Arsenal winning shit is important to me, but it certainly isn't everything.

I wouldn't in a million years put Vieira along with those other two. Keane deliberately ended another player's career, and several players have spoken about him being a bully. Barton is just a coward on the pitch, and seems completely mental off the pitch.

Btw - Vieira spat at Neil Ruddock because Ruddock's a racist cunt.

And Vieira may have played close to the edge, but he was a man that stood up for himself and his team mates - he gave it and took it. Suarez, on the other hand, is a weirdo. A sneaky little fucker that bites other grown men. He also does things that are genuinely really dangerous with seemingly very little provocation and does them almost every time he steps on the pitch. He's a crazed nutcase and comparing former Arsenal players with him and trying to paint those of us that criticise Suarez as hypocrites is well wide of the mark. They're not even slightly the same.

Spitting at someone is a bit different than biting them, I'd say. People make a big deal out of things like card-waving, diving, handling, and spitting, but it's really not the end of the world. Biting, racial abuse, leg-breaking, achilles-raking, choking, etc. These make you a violent, cheating lunatic. Suarez, Pepe, and Costa are in a different class to the likes of Vieira, Bergkamp, and Keown. Just so happens that they are also equally as likely to participate in the less-serious brand of cheatiness as well.

Jed wrote:

Rex wrote:

I can't believe the excuses that are being made for an absolute trash, piece of shit, sad excuse for a human being like Bitey. It is absolutely ridiculous IMO to compare anything any of those other players were/are doing to the shit Bitey is known for and then trying to explain it away with 'he is a winner'. How much of a winner was he at Liverpool by the way? Uruguay? It isn't like he transformed a shit Barcelona side into this juggernaut we are now seeing; they are sort of used to winning shit on a regular basis there.

Vieira spat on an opponent, Bergkamp elbowed several people on the pitch, Henry dove and handballed his way to the World Cup, Wrighty deliberately tried to hurt Schmeichel (by his own admission), Keown went after Van Horseface, etc.

All of the aforementioned are considered legends by every Arsenal fan.

Why is Suarez a 'sad excuse for a human being' yet none of the aforementioned is considered as such?

Come on, Suarez is something else entirely. Fellaini also elbows people all the time, Ashley Young is a dirty diver and Messi has scored a handball goal. Nobody here, nor anywhere else, compare these players to Suarez or Costa.

I just don't get comparing Saurez's antics with Bergkamp (of all people!), Vieira and Keown!
Saurez is a slimy little shit. They are not. They dish out and take it.

For what it's worth, Costa is ALOT worse than Suarez for me. In my opinion Suarez is genuinely OTT in certain things because he has anger management problems. Biting, insulting opponents with perceived racism when his team is not winning. These are things born out of frustration. We have heard so many times from his team mates at Liverpool and Barcelona that he is a very good character off the pitch and is a huge influence in the dressing room especially.

Costa on the other hand is on a different level. This is someone who goes onto the pitch to try and hurt his opponent and is as underhand in every way imaginable. He is a perfectly normal person who is a huge cunt.

Clrnc wrote:

For what it's worth, Costa is ALOT worse than Suarez for me. In my opinion Suarez is genuinely OTT in certain things because he has anger management problems. Biting, insulting opponents with perceived racism when his team is not winning. These are things born out of frustration. We have heard so many times from his team mates at Liverpool and Barcelona that he is a very good character off the pitch and is a huge influence in the dressing room especially.

Costa on the other hand is on a different level. This is someone who goes onto the pitch to try and hurt his opponent and is as underhand in every way imaginable. He is a perfectly normal person who is a huge cunt.

Suarez is more sneaky and calculating in my opinion.

Costa always strikes me as an overgrown child who can't control his temper. Some people have said he's a master of the dark arts, but the guy is a thicko, who's lucky that refs have missed his offences or simply failed to punish them sufficiently. 

Hating someone for doing something he can't control is bonkers to me. As baffling as religious people who tell you everything we do has already been pre-planned and we are only here to carry out what has been planned for us but then proceed to tell you God will send people to hell who do things he doesn't like (including those he himself had already planned).

Look, we all don't know Suarez personally, we rely on what those around him say about him to help us form an idea of who he actually is. Even dismissing what psychologists say, it doesn't just add up that a normal person would do what he does. I have heard coaches at Ajax talk about how obsessed he is with the game, desperate  to play every single match even when he isn't top fit (no wonder he hardly misses a match through injury). They talk about how he plays South American qualifiers on Thursdays, lands at Amsterdam airport on Saturday morning but still insists on playing few hours later and then go on to outrun almost everyone on the pitch. It just doesn't add up such a footballer would then go about biting people for fun, knowing fully well he'll be suspended for it later, which will lead to him miserably sitting at home whilst his colleagues play world cup, CL or Copa America games. It really doesn't.

Also, the fact that he's lived in Europe (in 3 different countries) for as long as he has, and is yet to get involved in a single off the pitch incident, at an age where everything footballers do is reported on social media (twitter etc) back up what those who know him say about him, IMO.

On the other hand he's the only person to get suspended for racial slur on it. That's way worse than getting caught smoking outside some night club on a day off.

All on the pitch incidents though. None off it.

I don't really care where they happen. It still says something troubling about his character, or lack of it, to me. He's a horrid piece of work and there's a long history of offenses that supports that view.