• Premier League

Carragher: Suarez deserves another chance

Jamie Carragher denies Liverpool must release Luis Suarez to save the club's reputation, insisting the Uruguayan is not the only Reds player to have been caught up in controversy.

Liverpool fined Suarez for biting Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic on the weekend and have been pressured to release the 26-year-old after a series of misdemeanours at Anfield.

But Carragher believes past indiscretions from former players including himself, Graeme Souness and Robbie Fowler will provide Suarez with another chance.

"The way things are now being pitched is that Liverpool have got to do something about the rotten apple in their midst," he wrote in the Daily Mail. "It is as if Luis is the only player to have represented Liverpool who has ever been embroiled in controversy. That simply isn't the case.

"Every one of the players I mention regretted what happened and Luis is the same. More importantly, the club stood by every one of them."

Carragher attempted to play down the severity of Suarez's bite on Ivanovic, insisting it was far less sinister than a leg-breaking tackle.

"The bite was shocking, no question, and everyone who has seen it was amazed," Carragher said. "Yet was it worse than a challenge that could end someone's career?

"I know what it is like to have your leg broken by a reckless tackle. Lucas Neill cost me six months of my career in September 2003 when he played for Blackburn. Would I have preferred to have been bitten? Absolutely.

"I suspect that Branislav Ivanovic, who has conducted himself with great credit in the aftermath, would agree."

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