After two defeats to Wigan and Lille inside a week, the past few days have been crucial ones in Rafa Benitez’s reign. I believe I am not overstating the importance of the last two matches for if Liverpool had struggled to overcome bottom side Portsmouth on Monday night and then proceeded to crash out of the Europa League against Lille last night, there would have been many fans calling for the manager’s head. Falling further back in the race for fourth and crashing out of the only competition they had any hope of winning, the pressure on Benitez would have been enormous; as it is though, a 4-1 victory and a 3-0 win have lifted any immediate pressure off the shoulders of the Spaniard.
There is only one man that Rafa should thank though, Fernando Torres. The striker could not have come back at a better time and he has effectively saved the manager’s skin. If we go back to the match on Monday against Pompey and Torres was absent from the starting line-up, you know the outcome would have been much less certain than it actually turned out to be. An early goal from the Spanish striker calmed the nerves at Anfield and allowed the Reds to play with a lot more freedom than they would otherwise had played with. Although it was an easy finish after Maxi squared the ball to him, there is no guarantee that another striker would either have been as alert to be in the same position or that Maxi would have passed to him as readily and gone for goal himself. Take Torres’s goals away from the match, it would certainly have been a much nervier affair and with Pompey scoring late on, who would have bet against them doing a Reading and equalising in injury time?
The same could be said last night against Lille. Torres took both his goals extremely well and demonstrated his world class goalscoring talent. If Liverpool had gone into the second half with just that Steven Gerrard penalty and had not capitalised on that early chance after half-time, the tie would have continued to have been level and Lille would have grown in confidence. The Reds would have sat further and further back and the French side would have come onto them, threatening an equaliser which would have all but put to an end Liverpool’s chances of progressing in the competition. A world class player, is world class for a reason though, and Torres’s goals made the night a lot more comfortable than it could have been.
For me, without Torres, Liverpool would not be in the quarter final of the Europa League and their hopes of achieving a fourth place finish would have greatly diminished, but we do have him, and credit must go to Rafa Benitez who spent the £20million to bring the great ‘El Nino’ to the club. It was certainly apparent that the rest of the Liverpool team is not good enough in his absence, and that for us to win that League title that we all crave, we will perhaps need 5 or 6 Fernando Torres style signings. A prospect that is pretty remote considering the current financial plight of the club. As a Reds fan, there have been many factors that have worried me over the course of this season. Like most, I have doubted Rafa’s ability to be the man to deliver that elusive league title, I have questioned whether we just over achieved last season being so close to Manchester United, and most of all I have doubted the ability of many of the player’s playing for the club, but I have never questioned Fernando Torres, long may that continue.
