This is a Facebook post (mine) I feel compelled to give blog space. I have met people who bite and it has very rarely been a premeditated or vindictive act, it has been about extreme arousal leading to an uncontrolled primitive reaction. Here’s the post:

I don’t do football and I’m not a fan of Suarez but I do know about biting behaviours like his. People are looking for explanations in terms of what provoked it but it’s most likely they’re looking in the wrong place because it isn’t rational.

In the psychology business this is called hyper-arousal and whether positive or negative – like children bursting into tears at the end of a fab party, or cats purring then grabbing your hand – it spills out and a very primitive reaction takes over. The image of Suarez sitting on the pitch afterwards with his hands in his mouth and distress on his face is also primitive – he lost it and he hadn’t intended to, in my view, because it was neither premeditated nor personal.

I thought when I saw him earlier in the week, that he was wearing a wristband and, when he bit it after an energised moment, it occurred to me that it was there for just that purpose. If so, then his difficulty has been recognised and they’re trying to manage it. This time it failed and, while I have no sympathy for those who indulge in deliberate yobbishness, I am concerned for Suarez who seems plagued by a talent yoked to over-arousal that results in this hugely objectionable behaviour.