Monday, March 17, 2008

Rafa Benitez Insists Liverpool Aren’t Depending Too Much On Fernando Torres

Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez insists that his side are not over-reliant on Fernando Torres’s goals after the Spaniard became the first player at the club to net 20 times in a Premier League season since Robbie Fowler in 1995/96.

The 23-year-old’s 48th-minute winner against Reading was his ninth goal in his last six games but Benitez, who is keeping his fingers crossed over the player who overcame a foot injury in the first half, remains confident that he possesses several other attacking threats if anything happened to his record signing.

He said: “We are not too reliant on Torres. People were asking why do you change, why do you rotate? You do it to try to keep the players fresh and clear of injury.

“So now when you have one week or three or four days in this case, you can use the players.

“But you must be thinking about the next games and three games in six days or six games in 16 days, all of them with very high tempo and demanding a lot physically from the players. We need to think about each game.

“We have also Kuyt, Crouch and Voronin, three strikers who can score goals. Today we have Babel, Kuyt, Gerrard and Torres and all of them are offensive, all of them have chances in every game.

“If you don’t have one player, you must use another player, so I think we have enough quality.”

Benitez was delighted that Torres has broken the 20-goal barrier but also paid tribute to his other forwards, Dutch pair Ryan Babel and Dirk Kuyt, who are operating in wide areas in Liverpool’s current 4-2-3-1 formation.

He said: “It was important for Torres and also for us.

“Everyone was talking about the money we spent, but it’s funny because everyone says ‘fantastic signing’ and then when you don’t spend money on a player and he’s free and it’s not working, they say ‘really bad signing.’

“Why? Because he was free. In this case, he was expensive and now he’s really good. When you have more money, it’s easier to sign better players.

“If Kuyt plays as a striker, he can score goals. It’s the same with Babel. But for the balance of the team, it’s very positive because they are working very hard for the team. That’s the most important thing.”

Following their shock FA Cup quarter-final defeat to Barnsley, Liverpool have recovered to win seven straight games and with five crucial fixtures over the coming month against Manchester United, Everton and Arsenal (three times), Benitez admits that motivating his players is easier when they’re on a run like this.

He said: “The team is playing well. We had two or three games that we drew at home that we could have won.

“There’s just a chance that you don’t score or that they score. If they don’t score in those games, that’s the difference.

“Today if they scored in the end, people would be saying ‘Good game, lots of chances, but ...’ But now because we are winning we have more confidence.

“Thinking about these games, it’s clear that we have a lot of confidence now. The mood in the dressing room is very good and the mentality of the players is very positive.”

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