Rio Ferdinand: Liverpool should keep Luis Suarez

Rio Ferdinand has urged Liverpool to keep hold of Luis Suarez despite his latest biting scandal.

The 27-year-old striker has been handed a four-month suspension from all football-related activity by Fifa for biting defender Giorgio Chiellini during Uruguay’s World Cup win over Italy.

It is the third time in his career that Suarez has been banned for the same offence and there have been suggestions that Liverpool are now planning to offload the forward.

However, former Manchester United defender Ferdinand feels the Reds should keep hold of the striker, who scored 31 Premier League goals last season.

“If I were the Liverpool manager there wouldn’t be a moment’s doubt about what to do next with Luis Suarez. I’d keep him,” Ferdinand wrote in the Daily Mail.

“Leave aside, just for a moment, questions of morality or whether his ban is long enough and what is going on is his head to make him do these extraordinarily bad things.

“Purely and simply from a football perspective, what he does for you on the pitch — and I don’t mean biting people – makes him indispensable. And with the season Liverpool have ahead of them, that’s truer than ever.”