Last weekend’s home draw with Wigan may have stopped the run of successive victories and clean sheets at four league games, but Liverpool will take plenty positives from Saturday’s showing. With his fifth goal in six games, the goalscoring form of Raul Meireles is showing no sign of ending and, just as encouragingly, the integration of new signing Luis Suarez into the Liverpool first-team looks set to be seamlessly quicker than expected.

Injuries to Steven Gerrard and Daniel Agger denied Kenny Dalglish key personnel in his recent 3-2-3-1-1 formation, so Liverpool switched to a 4-4-1-1 system against Wigan. As this Passing Heat Map shows, Suarez -in his first start for the club- was initially stationed out left with plenty license to roam, then, with the illness that forced Meireles off the pitch on 54 minutes allowing the Uruguayan a more central role thereafter, he showed plenty to suggest he will not just be a prominent player for Liverpool but also -potentially- for Fantasy Teams once he is fully settled at Anfield.

Suarez had 5 goal attempts at the weekend and was desperately unlucky not to find the net; he hit the post, then the bar and, in the absence of Gerrard, also took on direct free-kick duties. Our Members can see just how good his performance was in terms of OPTA stats, but with more Touches of the ball than any other forward last weekend -in addition to a number of impressive stats- it was easy to see just why the new boy picked up 2 Fantasy Premier League (FPL) Bonus Points for his performance.

As the Heat Maps below show, having moved into the middle, his take on the role vacated by Meireles shows he is a more attack-minded option behind the lone forward. Whereas Meireles dropped deep, Suarez stayed higher up the pitch, stretching the opposition defence more. Indeed, 3 of his 5 shots came after Meireles’ departure, with Suarez also having 2 blocked shots during the last 35 minutes. A good omen, perhaps, as this seems his most likely position once Liverpool’s squad have a clean bill of health, with Andy Carroll playing just in front.

As the Average Position map below shows, Suarez’s (7) eye for goal sees him furthest forward of any Liverpool player against Wigan, and once he is fully fit -this was his first start in two months- will become even more of a menace to opposition teams.

Speaking after the match, Dalglish was clearly delighted with his big-money acquisition:

It’s not difficult to warm to him is it? He’s very energetic and skilful. He loves to score goals and was unlucky not to get on the scoresheet. In normal circumstances maybe we would have taken him off because he’s not had a game for a while. It probably pushed him that bit too far. We were just hoping he might get us a goal.

Finally, here’s a nice little look at the entirety of his match involvement against Wigan, a compilation courtesy of You Tube.