We didnt just "lose" two players (one who didnt want to be here, and one who is injured), those players were, as it turns out, the ones that made everyone else around them look good.
There is another way of seeing this though.
Obviously, having Suarez and Sturridge upfront has made everyone's lives much easier - that much is true for every team with top quality forwards.
However, it is not simply the case that the rest of the team was mediocre and made to look good with Suarez (players like Coutinho, Sterling and Henderson are, in my opinion, far better than that), but mostly due to the fact that the players replacing Suarez/Sturridge are at best average and, perhaps crucially, of a totally different type that hardly suits the style the rest of the team grew accustomed with.
A key thing to remember, for instance, is that, despite being inconsistent, Raheem Sterling remains the u-21 player with most chances created in the top 5 European leagues this season. His quality is beyond question IMO. He'll be good whether he plays with Suarez and Sturridge or not, but any quick creative player will struggle and have his performances degraded when playing with either a lazy f**ker like Balotelli or the very immobile Lambert in front of him. You don't need Suarez to see Sterling's quality, just give him more suitable partners and he'll look better, of course - football is a team sport.
We probably would be a worse team without Suarez irrespective of replacement (as I think only Messi and Ronaldo are above him in terms of talent) but I think there's a tendency to dismiss the rest of the squad way too easily (all that "one man team" crap that ignored the fact we actually had a pretty good record
without Suarez), and this is a short sighted view in my opinion.
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