Luis Suarez Has Been 'Crucified': 'He is a Lovely Guy'

Pepe Reina insists Liverpool striker Luis Suarez has been "crucified" by the media over his racism charge and said the squad would rally behind the player he called "a lovely guy".

Suarez was handed an eight-match ban by the Football Association on Tuesday after he was found guilty of using racial language towards Manchester United captain Patrice Evra during a match in October.

Suarez's lawyer has said the Uruguay international plans to appeal the punishment and Liverpool will decide a course of action within the next 14 days.

The Liverpool forward was targeted with chants of "racist" and "cheat" from the home support during Wednesday night's 0-0 draw at Wigan.

Liverpool's players expressed their support for the 24-year-old by releasing a statement before kick-off and wearing t-shirts displaying an image of Suarez and his name and number seven.

Reina believes the player has been treated unfairly and said the show of unity by the squad indicated the level of respect he garners at the club.

"We are all right behind him. He has our full support," said Reina. "We made a statement earlier and we said what we thought was the truth. We were together from the very first minute [of the allegations] and it is the minimum we can do for him.

"He is not racist. I am 100 percent [sure] he is not a racist and he has been accused of racism. We showed our support to Luis. We want him and everyone to know we are right behind our team-mate because he is a lovely guy and he has been crucified by some people and it is not fair. Eight games is not even close to be fair."

Meanwhile, the Spain international maintains there is no need to panic despite dropping two more points during last night's goalless draw at the DW Stadium.

"It was another one of those games when we deserved the three points but it feels like two points dropped," he told Liverpool's official Web site.

"Their goalkeeper Al-Habsi was brilliant and he made some great saves, including the penalty. As long as we keep creating these chances one of these days we will punish someone and get a lot of goals.

"We didn't lose the game and we kept a clean sheet which is always positive," he added. "We have to take the positives and that is the team is defending very well and we can take a lot of confidence from that."