It may have been suggested that he would ‘drive people away from the game’ earlier this season, but plenty of the people who’ll visit Upton Park on Sunday will doubtless be wishing that they could get a glimpse of Luis Suarez.

Alright, the vast majority of West Ham supporters will be delighted that their team don’t have to face the Premier League’s joint-top scorer, but Suarez’s absence will undoubtedly see the fixture lose a little of its sparkle and its star quality. It could however give Liverpool’s European aspirations a huge shot in the arm.

After being booked in three of his first four Premier League games of the season, the Uruguayan was always walking a disciplinary tightrope the longer the campaign went on, and with Liverpool’s lack of striking options perhaps one of the few things talked about more often than Suarez this season, a suspension for the No.7 was always going to be big news.

After weeks of fans picking and choosing the fixture that they felt would be easiest to negotiate without the club’s star man, the booking picked up for instinctively handling the ball against Southampton last weekend now means that it’ll be West Ham who’ll be spared the prospect of facing the forward.

Just who starts upfront in east London at the weekend remains to be seen, with Jonjo Shelvey an early favourite amidst calls for the likes of Dani Pacheco, Adam Morgan and even Steven Gerrard (a personal preference would be Sebastian Coates, or failing that Roger Hunt), but Suarez’s absence there at least signifies that he should be seen in northern Italy about 68 hours earlier.

You can knock the Europa League all you want, you won’t be alone, but progression in the tournament is surely vital to the Reds at a time when the club are desperate to cling to the coat-tails of those at the summit of the European game.

The presence of Suarez in Udine on Thursday – where he will surely start given that his next fixture will be all of nine days later at home to Aston Villa – will give the Reds some much needed attacking prowess on an evening when Udinese will have to be beaten for European football beyond Christmas to be definitely secured.

Although capable of the quality that we saw during their 3-2 win at Anfield in October, Udinese are nevertheless out of the competition already. Thursday’s match is nothing but an inconvenience to them.

Brendan Rodgers will doubtless turn to members of his squad not seen so much in recent weeks such as Oussama Assaidi and Nuri Sahin, but the presence of Suárez is likely to lift whoever steps out onto the pitch for the Reds at the Stadio Friuli. The prospect of chasing around the Uruguayan for 90 minutes for little reward isn’t one that the home defenders will relish.

So what Liverpool will be missing at the weekend is sure to be on full show on Thursday, when Suarez’s presence could just be the catalyst for a Reds win which secures qualification for the knockout stages.

Marrying together good domestic and European form is a tough ask of course, but should the squad – as expected – be refreshed by a couple or more new faces come January then those demands aren’t likely to faze Rodgers or his players when the next stages of this admittedly bloated competition kick into gear in the New Year.

Suarez is of course vital to everything Liverpool do and hopefully he will be for some time yet, but as the frustrations remain over his suspension for what will be a tough task at the weekend – just ask Rafael Benitez – the crumb of comfort should come with his availability in Italy.

After experiencing declining fortunes on the continent in recent years then progress in the Europa League will at least show Europe that the Reds are still to be reckoned with.

Inadvertently, Suárez might have helped that cause with what could be the kindest of yellow cards.

@Mark_Jones86

For more of Mark's blogs as well as top fantasy football advice, comment and opinion visit Fantasy Yirma.