BARCELONA: Luis Suarez, poised to return to competitive football for Barcelona against Real Madrid, has said he is receiving help to control his “impulse” to bite.

The 27-year-old Uruguay striker was suspended for four months and 10 internationals for biting Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini during the World Cup group stage in Brazil in June.

Conceding a problem, Suarez said in an interview with The Guardian Weekend: “It is like an impulse, like a reaction. I believe I am on the right path now, dealing with the people who can help me, the right kind of people.”

Suarez’s attack on Chiellini was the third time he had bitten an opponent after asaults on PSV Eindhoven’s Otman Bakkal while playing for Ajax in Holland in 2010, and then Chelsea’s Brane Ivanovic when he was a Liverpool player in 2013.

He said: “Everyone has different ways of defending themselves. In my case, the pressure and tension came out in that way.

“There are other players who react by breaking someone’s leg, or smashing someone’s nose across their face. What happened with Chiellini is seen as worse.

“I understand why biting is seen so badly.”

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