Martinez: Suarez needs professional help

Everton boss Roberto Martinez has criticised Luis Suarez following his apparent bite on Italy's Giorgio Chiellini and believes the Uruguayan needs professional help following his latest controversy.

The Liverpool striker seemed to sink his teeth into the Juventus centre-back in Tuesday’s decisive World Cup Group D clash, the third such incident involving Suarez, who has previously bitten PSV’s Otman Bakkal and Chelsea’s Branislav Ivanovic, receiving seven and 10-match bans respectively.

And while Martinez was full of praise for the 27-year-old’s footballing ability, he was scathing in his assessment of Suarez’s conduct and believes he should seek help to control his volatility.

“There is no doubt about the talent and the quality he has,” said the Spanish coach while working as a pundit for ESPN. “He can win games single-handedly and he has that focus and mentality that he can get back from a situation [the surgery that preceded the tournament].

“But the behaviour, I just seriously think that he needs help. If you cannot control yourself in those moments, then he needs some sort of help, because that is just unacceptable on a football pitch.”

Martinez, a Merseyside rival of Suarez, was dumbfounded that Suarez could bite another player for a third time and believes he has betrayed his status as a role model and overshadowed various sub-plots from Tuesday’s World Cup action.

“This is a behaviour that has happened already two times and Luis Suarez, as wonderful a footballer as he is, he’s been banned twice [for the same offence],” the former Wigan boss continued.

“He [has] such a controversial way of behaving on a football pitch that you see it again and everyone feels upset.

“We can’t celebrate, we can’t talk about what Uruguay did, we can’t talk about why Mario Balotelli didn’t come on in the second half. These are big talking points.

“[Instead] it is about how Luis Suarez is allowed to play the game without carrying that responsibility you have as a player, being a role model for the younger generation. You cannot justify it."