Luis Suarez was the man of the moment once again as a double from the Uruguayan striker helped Liverpool to another comfortable 3-0 win over Sunderland in their English Premier League game.
Suarez struck a brace either side of halftime, with Raheem Sterling opening the scoring for the Reds, as they moved up to eighth in the Premier League table, following two-straight 3-0 wins, the first of them coming against QPR.
Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers said Suarez was Liverpool's Lionel Messi.
"I was talking with Harry (Redknapp) after our game, and he said Luis was a Messi-type character," Rodgers said.
"When I gave him a break at the start of the season, he didn't want it. He didn't want the breather.
"He is a player that has to play two or three times a week to be on top of his game -- one game a week is no good to him. He needs to be playing.
"And you see the response you get from him. His work has never dropped. He is a real team player and trains every day.
"He is never in the treatment room and then he comes out and performs. As the ball moves, he finds the spaces. His cleverness finds the space, and he is thriving. It will be fantastic to see him keep developing.
"You have got to give massive credit to my players. The effort and the quality tonight was phenomenal. This was their fourth game over the holiday period, and, when you look around the country, there are a lot of tired performances."
Sunderland manager Martin O'Neill said his side were just not good enough on the day. "Liverpool were too strong for us and deserved to win the game," he told reporters. "It looked as though we ran out of steam out there tonight.
"We started off very brightly indeed and had Liverpool on the back-foot, but once they got their goal they opened us up and exploited us.
"Luis Suarez is a top quality footballer and he was a handful tonight.
"Perhaps it was a case of a bridge too far, we've played four games in 12 days and we've got one of the smallest squads in the Barclays Premier League.
"We've had some big games as of late and maybe in terms of recovery we just haven't got that ability to switch things around as we would like to."
