All eyes were on Anfield on Monday night as Luis Suarez returned for Liverpool, while Fabio Capello was also in attendance.

It's every bride's nightmare.

You spend ages planning for the big day, ensuring everything goes to plan.

Then, you arrive at the venue only to find you've been upstaged.

It was a little bit like that for Luis Suarez on Monday evening.

Banned for eight matches, unjustly he maintains, he returned to the bench for Liverpool's Premier League meeting with Tottenham.

The photographers were interested of course. But not as much as they were drawn to the presence of Fabio Capello in the directors' box.

When he watched Chelsea's thrilling 3-3 draw with Manchester United at Stamford Bridge on Sunday, news of Capello's explosive comments about the FA's handling of John Terry's situation had not been made public.

It was only a couple of hours later that their impact was felt.

The England manager, openly disagreeing with his boss, the FA chairman, about the England captain.

Doesn't come much bigger really, which is why so many lenses were trained on the stands, rather than the home dug-out.

A few moments earlier, Capello had declined the opportunity to expand, explain or enlighten a small number of UK-based journalists about his feelings, so we do not know whether he intends to resign, pick Terry as a player, claim to have been misquoted, or none of the above.

As the Football Association hierarchy have been similarly reluctant to offer guidance on the status of their relationship they pay £6million a year, a void has been created that is being filled by comment and conjecture, not all of it favourable to the Italian by any means.

Capello's mere presence at Anfield suggests he wants to continue.

And to that end, he was watching two players who have been strongly tipped to replace Terry as skipper for Euro 2012.

Steven Gerrard has to be the favourite, having done the job in South Africa.

However, the Liverpool captain's woeful injury record brings others into the frame, and they include Scott Parker, even if, with 10 caps, he hardly classes as an international veteran.

Both did their jobs here, Gerrard prodding and probing, Parker screening and shielding.

Yet it was another regular member of Capello's squad who caught the eye, full-back Glen Johnson, who on the left rather than his usual right-sided station made a couple of crunching tackles and went close to breaking the deadlock with a curling shot that bounced narrowly wide.

Johnson was also in the thick of it as Gareth Bale tangled with Daniel Agger, although the star of the opening period had been a tabby cat, so enthused by proceedings he skipped calmly into the Tottenham box for a sit down before making his way to the touchline, where he was gathered up by a steward.

With the majority of the guests now in their place and fully absorbed by a contest that intrigued without actually exploding to life, Kenny Dalglish's demand for Suarez to get ready for action was greeted with rapturous applause.

It was fully four minutes before the Uruguayan was introduced into the fray, 114 days since the fateful encounter with Patrice Evra that landed Suarez with an eight-match ban and so polarised opinion between the two clubs that the striker is guaranteed a reception at Old Trafford next Saturday even more hostile than the one Evra got at Anfield nine days ago.

Suarez certainly brought some energy to the Liverpool attack, in addition to water to the eyes of Parker, whom he kicked pretty hard in the stomach, completely by accident but with more than enough ferocity to warrant the booking.

With 85 minutes on the clock, Suarez rose to meet a teasing free-kick on the edge of the six-yard box.

Anfield held its breath but the header went straight to Brad Friedel.

Harry Redknapp, fogbound at London City airport, could breathe a sigh of relief.

Those who have fought so hard to stop Suarez being glorified for his misdemeanour probably shared the same view.

Simon Stone, Press Association