Rafa Benitez has confirmed Steven Gerrard will miss Liverpool’s Premier League trip to Hull after his captain failed to recover from his adductor strain in time to be fit for the game.
Gerrard suffered the injury in the Champions League quarter final, first leg defeat to Chelsea, missing Liverpool’s last three games as a result, and the Spaniard today admitted the visit to the KC Stadium will come too soon for the England international.
But Benitez is confident Gerrard will return to the side for the remaining four games of the campaign, starting with Newcastle’s match at Anfield in eight days’ time, all of which Liverpool must win if they are to overhaul Manchester United at the top of the Premier League table.
Benitez’s side currently lie three points behind their Old Trafford rivals, who also boast the added cushion of a game in hand, and he again insisted they “must be perfect” between now and the end of the season to stand any chance at all of ending the club’s 19-year wait for a league championship.
As he prepares to face Phil Brown’s relegation battlers, Benitez will no doubt be boosted by the confidence imbued by scoring four goals in each of their previous three games, although he does admit a degree of concern that, in two of those, they have conceded the same amount.
He said: “Chelsea and Arsenal are really good teams and we know they can score against anyone. We must be worried to concede four in two games, but if we can go back to the defensive level we had before and keep the attacking threat we have, then we will be fine.
"United have difficult games and while they are in the driving seat, we have to keep our confidence we can catch them.”
Gerrard suffered the injury in the Champions League quarter final, first leg defeat to Chelsea, missing Liverpool’s last three games as a result, and the Spaniard today admitted the visit to the KC Stadium will come too soon for the England international.
But Benitez is confident Gerrard will return to the side for the remaining four games of the campaign, starting with Newcastle’s match at Anfield in eight days’ time, all of which Liverpool must win if they are to overhaul Manchester United at the top of the Premier League table.
Benitez’s side currently lie three points behind their Old Trafford rivals, who also boast the added cushion of a game in hand, and he again insisted they “must be perfect” between now and the end of the season to stand any chance at all of ending the club’s 19-year wait for a league championship.
As he prepares to face Phil Brown’s relegation battlers, Benitez will no doubt be boosted by the confidence imbued by scoring four goals in each of their previous three games, although he does admit a degree of concern that, in two of those, they have conceded the same amount.
He said: “Chelsea and Arsenal are really good teams and we know they can score against anyone. We must be worried to concede four in two games, but if we can go back to the defensive level we had before and keep the attacking threat we have, then we will be fine.
"United have difficult games and while they are in the driving seat, we have to keep our confidence we can catch them.”
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