Rodgers lauds prolific striker Suarez

Suarez scored four times in the 5-1 hammering of Norwich City in midweek and he took his tally for the season to 15 top-flight goals as Liverpool brushed aside Sam Allardyce's side to move up to second in the Premier League.

It was a fifth successive home victory for the Merseyside club to ensure West Ham's 50-year wait for a win at Anfield goes on.

A Guy Demel own-goal three minutes before half-time set Liverpool on their way, then Mamadou Sakho added a second - and his first goal for the club - just after the break.

Martin Skrtel's own-goal gave West Ham hope, but Suarez headed a third goal before the Uruguay striker's effort went in off Joey O'Brien after Kevin Nolan had been shown a straight red card for a challenge on Jordan Henderson.

Liverpool have scored 20 goals in their last five home games as Anfield has turned into a fortress and Rodgers hailed another fine performance from Suarez, labelling the forward as one of the best players in world football.

He said: "I don't think you can put a price on him at this moment and I wouldn't want to.

"He's got two and a half years here, you look at his consistency in his game and how he's playing, he's really enjoying being at Liverpool and playing here.

"At this moment in time he's up there with the best players in the world and whatever price people put on that, then that's what they'll do. But at the moment it's not of interest of me or him because he's very happy here.

"I wouldn't swap Suarez for anyone, I get the chance to work with him every day and what he gives to training and the team is a relentless desire.

"When you have that in a player you don't want to let him go and it's been an absolute privilege to work with him. It's never always been smooth sailing of course, but it never is but we've got a strong relationship."

Rodgers believes his side ought to have won by a more emphatic margin as West Ham struggled to cope with Liverpool's passing and movement.

He said: "I was delighted with the victory.

"There were lots of elements with the performance I was very pleased with. You look at the game last year (a goalless draw against West Ham) and we never really created chances, but you look (in Saturday's game) we had 29 attempts and could have easily doubled the number of goals we had.

"We worked our socks off, we had a spell at 2-0 where it could have gone to four or five, we then conceded the own-goal but our response from that was brilliant. We had control of the game and had to defend a lot of long and direct balls into the box, but technically we held up and eventually that won through.

"We are not perfect, but we are a team that is still growing an evolving. We are scoring goals, when we came in that was a big issue. We will always want to improve and have that mentality not to concede, but it was a really good victory against a strong and committed team."

Steven Gerrard went off with a hamstring injury early in the second half and Rodgers revealed the extent of the captain's problem is not yet known, while Daniel Agger missed out due to illness.

He said: "I think we just need to assess that in the next day or so. It was definitely his hamstring, but hopefully a strain and not a pull. We will see where we are in the next 48 hours."

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