Managing Liverpool involves various challenges. Winning a first league title since 1990, for instance, or ending their four-year exile from the Uefa Champions League.
The hardest of all, perhaps, is finding something new to say about Luis Suarez.
Week after week, game after game, manager Brendan Rodgers is confronted with questions about Liverpool’s magnificent
No 7.
Thankfully for the Northern Irishman, only a fraction now are about Suarez’s desire to leave last summer and very few relate to biting Branislav Ivanovic or racially abusing Patrice Evra, the controversies that have marked his past.
Instead, the objective is to find different and original ways of praising Suarez, scorer of four goals, three of them spectacular, against Norwich City on Wednesday, and of 13 in nine Premier League games.
Rodgers has suggested that, should the striker remain at Anfield for most of his career, he could rank among Liverpool’s all-time greats.
He believes that, after Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, the Uruguayan belongs in the next bracket of the world’s finest footballers.
He is desperate to prove Liverpool can match Suarez’s ambitions and to ensure others do not tempt his best player to leave.
Yet it was Suarez’s artful destruction of Norwich that prompted some original thinking. The manner of his goals – in particular, the crisply struck opener from 40 yards and the impish decision to juggle the ball over Leroy Fer for the third – had him casting his mind back 20 years.
“I was trying to think back to a game where a player scores a couple of goals like that and the one that hits me was Matt Le Tissier against Newcastle at The Dell,” the manager said. “He scored two absolutely brilliant goals and it stuck with me.”
Le Tissier’s two goals in 1993 for Southampton incorporated a dipping, effortless, inch-perfect effort from distance and a solo run where, instead of taking the ball around an opponent, he knocked it over them and collected his own pass before beating the keeper.
Le Tissier was, unequivocally, a scorer of great goals.
So, too, is Suarez.
He may be developing into a great goalscorer, too. It is a subtle distinction. The men whose finest strikes fill compilation DVDs do not tend to be the poachers, who specialise in quantity rather than quality.
With 36 goals in his last 41 league games, however, Suarez is a flair player who is scoring at the rate of any finisher.
“He is an incredible talent,” Rodgers said.
He has also proved an irrepressible one. In the nine league games since his return from suspension, he has been substituted twice: against West Bromwich Albion, after he had scored three times, and following his four-goal salvo against Norwich, both ploys by Rodgers to afford him a standing ovation. On each occasion, the sense was that Suarez was disappointed to depart the arena early.
The bigger question is when he will exit Liverpool on a permanent basis.
On Wednesday, Suarez indicated that fans can expect a quiet January by pledging to stay until the end of the season. “I am happy and I will stay,” he said.
That is Rodgers’ impression, too. “His behaviour, his mannerisms, his maturity and his performance levels tell me he is very happy here at Liverpool,” the manager said, denying there is an agreement in place to let him leave next summer.
It is not the news overworked defences need. While Daniel Sturridge’s ankle injury means the tandem nicknamed SAS have been separated, Suarez has the capacity to overwhelm them on his own.
With every goal, it is ever harder for Rodgers to come up with a unique comment.
sports@thenational.ae
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TRAP
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Director: M Night Shyamalan
Rating: 3/5
Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989
Director: Goran Hugo Olsson
Rating: 5/5
Company profile
Company: Eighty6
Date started: October 2021
Founders: Abdul Kader Saadi and Anwar Nusseibeh
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Hospitality
Size: 25 employees
Funding stage: Pre-series A
Investment: $1 million
Investors: Seed funding, angel investors
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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In numbers: China in Dubai
The number of Chinese people living in Dubai: An estimated 200,000
Number of Chinese people in International City: Almost 50,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2018/19: 120,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2010: 20,000
Percentage increase in visitors in eight years: 500 per cent
Our legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Drivers’ championship standings after Singapore:
1. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes - 263
2. Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari - 235
3. Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes - 212
4. Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull - 162
5. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari - 138
6. Sergio Perez, Force India - 68
The specs
Engine: 2-litre or 3-litre 4Motion all-wheel-drive Power: 250Nm (2-litre); 340 (3-litre) Torque: 450Nm Transmission: 8-speed automatic Starting price: From Dh212,000 On sale: Now
The%C2%A0specs%20
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Company%20Profile
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Key products and UAE prices
iPhone XS
With a 5.8-inch screen, it will be an advance version of the iPhone X. It will be dual sim and comes with better battery life, a faster processor and better camera. A new gold colour will be available.
Price: Dh4,229
iPhone XS Max
It is expected to be a grander version of the iPhone X with a 6.5-inch screen; an inch bigger than the screen of the iPhone 8 Plus.
Price: Dh4,649
iPhone XR
A low-cost version of the iPhone X with a 6.1-inch screen, it is expected to attract mass attention. According to industry experts, it is likely to have aluminium edges instead of stainless steel.
Price: Dh3,179
Apple Watch Series 4
More comprehensive health device with edge-to-edge displays that are more than 30 per cent bigger than displays on current models.
The%20specs
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Company%20Profile
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Confirmed%20bouts%20(more%20to%20be%20added)
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The specs
Engine: 2-litre 4-cylinder and 3.6-litre 6-cylinder
Power: 220 and 280 horsepower
Torque: 350 and 360Nm
Transmission: eight-speed automatic
Price: from Dh136,521 VAT and Dh166,464 VAT
On sale: now
MEFCC information
Tickets range from Dh110 for an advance single-day pass to Dh300 for a weekend pass at the door. VIP tickets have sold out. Visit www.mefcc.com to purchase tickets in advance.
Company%20Profile
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The five new places of worship
Church of South Indian Parish
St Andrew's Church Mussaffah branch
St Andrew's Church Al Ain branch
St John's Baptist Church, Ruwais
Church of the Virgin Mary and St Paul the Apostle, Ruwais
FIVE%20TRENDS%20THAT%20WILL%20SHAPE%20UAE%20BANKING
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Hotel Silence
Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir
Pushkin Press
Company%20Profile
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Company%20Profile
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