Luis Suárez is this season's most talked about player, yet so little talk has been about his football. Suárez is a fascinating player because he has an unusual style of play – it's difficult to think of another player, past or present, to liken him to. He's a small, quick dribbler who enjoys roaming the pitch laterally, yet was also a brilliant poacher in his Ajax days. The first half of that description holds true for his 14 months at Liverpool, but he is yet to prove he has the finishing ability of old. That is crucial, considering Liverpool have the worst shot conversion rate in the league, at 9%, and have scored as few goals as Wolves, in the relegation zone.

Suárez's goal return this season is, in isolation, extremely disappointing. He's scored six goals from 21 appearances, a similar record to West Brom's Shane Long, and worse than Norwich's Steve Morison or Bolton's Ivan Klasnic. It's hardly unprecedented for a striker to arrive from the Eredivisie and be significantly less prolific in the Premier League, but Suárez is clearly no Afonso Alves or Mateja Kezman – he's not overawed by the league, he's not playing badly, he's just not scoring enough.

Six goals doesn't look much better when you consider that Suárez has 4.2 shots per game – only Wayne Rooney and Robin van Persie have more, and they've scored 18 and 25 goals respectively. But shots per game is a statistic open to interpretation and debate, and Suárez epitomises the uncertainly with which it should be viewed. Players with a high shots per game rate are generally exceptional performers – from Europe's top five leagues, first and second by that measure are Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. The main thing this says is that they're constant threat, which is something Suárez – to a lesser extent – also offers.

Glenn Hoddle once said that Andy Cole needed six or seven chances to score one goal, which was an extremely harsh reflection on an excellent striker, especially as the criticism stuck with Cole for the rest of his career. But if, for a second, we take Hoddle's view as gospel (which is always a slightly dangerous game), was Cole's problem that he needed six or seven chances? Or that he needed six or seven chances that had been created by others? Cole wasn't simply a finisher, but he was predominantly a penalty box player. The apparent wastefulness was more obvious when it came at the end of a swerving David Beckham cross, from a lofted Paul Scholes pass or following a surging Ryan Giggs dribble. It looked as if he was letting the side down, ruining someone else's good work.

Suárez is completely different. If Cole's need for six or seven chances was worthy of criticism, Suárez's record of scoring a goal every 14.8 shots is truly terrible (with the caveat that a "shot" is not quite the same as a "chance"). If he were a pure poacher, that ratio would be worthy of a place on the bench.

Yet a decent proportion of Suárez's shots are self-created, following good movement into the channels, a quick turn and then a direct dart into the box. His shot after 40 minutes of Saturday's meeting with Arsenal was a fine example – he rolled Thomas Vermaelen, turned past Alex Song, skipped away from Bacary Sagna and then cut inside Laurent Koscielny within five seconds, to present himself with a clear sight of goal 10 yards out, having picked up the ball on the edge of the area with his back to goal. Having expended so much energy with the burst past opponents, and with his balance increasingly slipping away as he escaped past each challenge, in the end all he could manage was a tame, stabbed shot that was easily turned away by Wojciech Szczesny. How much credit do you give the player for creating the opportunity, and how much blame for squandering it? In a one-off incident it's an exceptional piece of skill. Yet when the pattern is repeated over a period of nearly 90 shots (not all in this fashion, of course), you wonder if Suárez is simply trying to do too much.

Suárez's best role is up for debate – his good form at Ajax came when moving inside from a right-sided position, then with Uruguay he excelled at the Copa América last year when used as the primary striker. Importantly, he seemed to have much more of a defined role in the side, much stricter instructions. At Liverpool his role has varied between playing up front alone, and just behind Andy Carroll. He's generally been Liverpool's best attacking player this season – though Craig Bellamy has also played well – but too much of the play is dependent upon him, and he becomes the main man responsible for both creativity and goalscoring. To do two things at once is to do neither, Publilius Syrus once wrote, and Suarez's six goals are supplemented by a single assist.

Granted, pinning him down to a more specific role would be tricky considering the woes of his team-mates. You don't want to depend on Stewart Downing for service at the moment, nor on Carroll for goals, and Suárez often seems keener to go alone than involve certain other team-mates in his play. But one man running the show can cause others problems – David Beckham famously averted a crisis against Greece in 2001, but had probably contributed to the crisis with his positionless Roy of the Rovers act for much of the game.

At heart Suárez is a goalscorer, and it is only fine margins costing him. He's hit the woodwork six times this season – as many times as he has scored. That record suggests that he's on the right track, and he can look to his opposing striker on Saturday to see how important a couple of inches can be – Robin van Persie was previously the king of hitting the woodwork, now he's the best finisher in the Premier League.

The Arsenal captain has evolved from an all-rounder who picked the ball up in deep positions, to more of a finisher. He's less involved in the play, but clearly playing the most effective football of his career. He received the ball less than half as often as Suárez on Saturday – but twice he got the ball in the box, and both chances were converted with a one-touch finish.

Potency up front was the only difference between the sides at Anfield on Saturday. It's not that Liverpool don't have their Van Persie figure, they're just yet to bring out his full potential.

SHOT IN THE FOOT

One thing Chelsea were consistently good at throughout the André Villas-Boas's spell in charge was not allowing the opposition shots – coming into the Premier League weekend, they'd conceded fewer shots than any other team in the league. But by the end even that record was no longer intact, as Chelsea conceded 25 shots against West Brom – the most they had conceded for over three years, since Luiz Felipe Scolari was in charge of a 2-0 defeat to Liverpool, according to Opta. On that day, Chelsea were down to 10 men for a significant period – and Chelsea managed to hang out until the 88th minute, before conceding two goals in the final three minues – both scored by Fernando Torres.

BALANCED COTTAGERS

Clint Dempsey's fifth goal in Fulham's thrashing of Wolves ruined their chances of having a perfectly balanced record in the Premier League this season – they've won nine, drawn nine and lost nine of their 27 games, and were it not for the excellent fifth goal, they would have scored 36, conceded 36, and on 36 points. More importantly, this is the first time Fulham have put together a run of three consecutive wins since the final three games of the 2007-08 season, when they escaped relegation on goal difference.