Uruguay vs Saudi Arabia: Suarez needs to rectify World Cup goalscoring woes

It was a performance to forget for Luis Suarez in Uruguay’s 1-0 win over Egypt. The striker had chances aplenty to hit the back of the net, yet fluffed his lines each and every time when presented with the opportunity to score. His profligacy may not have had an effect on the final score, with Jose Gimenez’s header late on masking the issues, but the forward needs to lace up his goalscoring boots against Saudi Arabia today. 

Suarez yielded a WhoScored.com rating of just 6.21 against Egypt last week, the worst of all Uruguay starters in the win, but La Liga aficionados will know this was a vintage Suarez performance over the last few months. Indeed, the 31-year-old churned out underwhelming showing after underwhelming showing, but managed to impact the game eventually. 

A return of 25 goals and 12 assists shows that he has the means to have a positive effect on the game and he needs to translate this onto the international stage sooner rather than later. He missed three clear-cut goalscoring chances against Egypt, more than any other player at the World Cup so far, and he must step it up against Saudi Arabia to kickstart his quest for the Golden Boot. 

He made the headlines for all the wrongs reasons last time out, but he has the ideal chance to right his striking wrongs today. However, if he continues to struggle in front of goal, Uruguay fans may begin to turn on Suarez and demand a change in striker alongside Edinson Cavani. 

Cristhian Stuani and Maxi Gomez both enjoyed fine La Liga campaigns, so Tabarez isn’t short of striking options should Suarez continue to flounder. Taking into account his fine movement off the ball, though, that he is getting into goalscoring opportunities is a boost and one would expect Suarez to rectify his attacking woes against Saudi Arabia.