HULL City will face the most gifted individual in the Premier League when Luis Suarez leads Liverpool's attack tomorrow, according to manager Steve Bruce.
After almost three years in English football potholed by controversy, Suarez heads to the KC Stadium for the first time as a star reborn under Brendan Rodgers.
Nine goals in eight Premier League appearances this season have seen the Uruguayan bounce back from a ten-game ban for biting Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic in some style, and ensure a summer of transfer unrest has been long forgotten.
Together with striker partner Daniel Sturridge, who also boasts nine league goals to his name this term, Suarez will want to turn City into another step towards a title tilt in 2014 tomorrow afternoon.
Bruce and his defenders will require no introductions and he said: "He's got to be as good a player as there is in the Premier League at the minute. He's absolutely terrific every time I see him.
"His work-rate, his appetite, the whole lot he brings you. All the big players have got that, it's what makes them. Take it away from him, and he's not the same player.
"He's a bad loser, but that's what makes the great players. They've got that something that throws them over the edge."
Along with England captain Steven Gerrard and partner-in-crime Sturridge, Suarez will be among the first stellar names to visit the KC Stadium this term. It could have been different if the interest of Arsenal and Real Madrid had materialised with a big-money move this summer, and Bruce says holding on to Suarez was a "masterstroke."
He said: "Any manager will make sure you do anything you can to hold on to your best players and just because he bites somebody, it doesn't make you a bad player! It might cause you a problem.
"The big thing is that you must hold on to your big players because where do you replace Suarez?
"To keep hold of Suarez was a masterstroke, however they've done it. What a difference six months make."
Containing Suarez and Sturridge will likely hold the key to City's fortunes tomorrow. In 10 of Liverpool's 12 Premier League games this season, one or the other has scored.
On the two occasions where they failed to find the net, the Reds lost their only two games against Southampton and Arsenal.
Bruce, meanwhile, has two decisions to make. Whether to revert to a 5-4-1 shape that worked well at Tottenham but was abandoned at Southampton, and who will get the call to replace the injured Paul McShane in defence.
Either Abdoulaye Faye or Alex Bruce will return to the starting XI, with preference possibly for the latter, given Faye's mobility against Liverpool's slick attack.
"The one thing we've been is pretty flexible and we'll need to be," said Bruce. "We haven't got the biggest of squads and we have two or three missing. We'll be a little bit different from last week, though."
That will not mean a recall for James Chester, however. The gifted centre back has trained all week after two months out with a hamstring injury but Bruce is in no rush.
He said: "He's trained really well for six days but it's a long time out."
