Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard has hailed teammate Luis Suarez as an "absolute genius" following his man-of-the-match display against Southampton on Saturday.

Suarez celebrated his 100th league appearance for the club by opening the scoring before creating a second for his team and winning a penalty that helped the Reds claim a 3-0 victory.

His goal ended a five-match spell without finding the back of the net, but Gerrard believes that his contribution during that time has been as good as ever.

"It was a huge win for us and Luis showed once again that he's an absolute genius. People had been talking about him going five games without a goal but his contribution to the team has never wavered," Gerrard told the Liverpool Echo.

"He is very unselfish. At times he's been asked to play in a wider role and he has shown what a great team player he is. Even when he wasn't scoring, he was still terrorising defenders and creating goals for us. It was a great way for him to celebrate 100 league games for the club. His record is phenomenal.

"All strikers go through spells where they don't score but he's back on the scoresheet now and hopefully there's plenty more to come from him. After the quality of the finish for the first goal, it was a great assist for Raheem [Sterling] and then the way he earned the penalty just underlined the problems he caused them all game."

The victory saw Liverpool climb up to second in the Premier League table, four points behind leaders Chelsea.