Liverpool captain Jamie Carragher has warned the rest of the Premier League that the best is still to come from striker Fernando Torres.
With skipper Steven Gerrard injured, centre-back Carragher took the armband for Liverpool’s 3-2 win at Portsmouth which took them back to the Premier League summit until Manchester United’s 1-0 victory at West Ham yesterday.
Portsmouth led 1-0 and 2-1 before goals in the last five minutes from Dirk Kuyt and Torres snatched the points for the visitors.
Manager Rafael Benitez made six changes to his starting line-up from the midweek defeat to Everton.
And having played 101 minutes at Goodison Park on Wednesday night, Torres, who has recently returned from a hamstring injury was one of the players left out as the Spaniard handed French youngster David Ngog his first Premier League start up front.
Despite still not possessing full match fitness, Torres came off the bench to score a last-minute winner for Liverpool for the second time in consecutive weekends and take his goal tally to three in six days.
Carragher has warned Liverpool’s rivals that with Torres doing such damage when he’s not 100% fit, he could become a force to be reckoned with when he’s back firing on all cylinders.
He said: “Fernando is massive to our title challenge. It’s credit to the players and the staff that we are where we are considering he’s been missing for a long time this season.
“To get him back, the way he’s been firing against Chelsea with a couple of great goals and then he’s done the damage against Portsmouth has gained us an extra four points in two Premier League games.
“If he can keep doing that for the rest of the season then we’ll run whoever it is close for the title.”
Torres is one of five Liverpool players in the Spain squad to face England in Seville on Wednesday and although his club manager has been nursing him back to fitness gradually, Vicente Del Bosque is expected to use him.
Carragher said: “At the moment Fernando is just coming back to fitness and he played into extra-time on Wednesday and now he’ll be going away with Spain so given the injuries he’s had this season the manager is being very careful with him.
“He’s doing okay with the goals he’s scoring but he’s not quite 100%. Given that, if he keeps coming on and scoring then we’ve got something to look forward to in the coming months when he is fully fit.”
Some glaring individual errors from Portsmouth’s former Liverpool duo Peter Crouch and David James handed their ex-team victory at Fratton Park.
And Carragher admitted that with a two-week break ahead of them because of their FA Cup exit, it was important to bounce back with a win following their derby defeat.
He said: “There are small details in football, little things which can change games. Against Everton we were a little bit unlucky that it went against us but against Portsmouth it went for us but that’s football.
“It’s a massive result for us because the next game is two weeks away. If we’d have gone into that break off a bad result it would have been hanging over us for a couple of weeks. We had an opportunity here a couple of days after the Everton game which was vital for us.
“It wasn’t too bad because we got the three points because we didn’t want to wait a long time to get a result and the Manchester City game is a couple of weeks away.”
For the first time this season, Liverpool switched to a back three formation with Carragher marshalling Martin Skrtel and Daniel Agger either side of him but the skipper claimed there was no problem adapting to the alternative system.
He said: “We were fine with the three at the back – we’ve played that a lot of times under Benitez.
“We haven’t played it this season but we’ve done it plenty of times before under Rafa and we always seem to get good results with it.”
With skipper Steven Gerrard injured, centre-back Carragher took the armband for Liverpool’s 3-2 win at Portsmouth which took them back to the Premier League summit until Manchester United’s 1-0 victory at West Ham yesterday.
Portsmouth led 1-0 and 2-1 before goals in the last five minutes from Dirk Kuyt and Torres snatched the points for the visitors.
Manager Rafael Benitez made six changes to his starting line-up from the midweek defeat to Everton.
And having played 101 minutes at Goodison Park on Wednesday night, Torres, who has recently returned from a hamstring injury was one of the players left out as the Spaniard handed French youngster David Ngog his first Premier League start up front.
Despite still not possessing full match fitness, Torres came off the bench to score a last-minute winner for Liverpool for the second time in consecutive weekends and take his goal tally to three in six days.
Carragher has warned Liverpool’s rivals that with Torres doing such damage when he’s not 100% fit, he could become a force to be reckoned with when he’s back firing on all cylinders.
He said: “Fernando is massive to our title challenge. It’s credit to the players and the staff that we are where we are considering he’s been missing for a long time this season.
“To get him back, the way he’s been firing against Chelsea with a couple of great goals and then he’s done the damage against Portsmouth has gained us an extra four points in two Premier League games.
“If he can keep doing that for the rest of the season then we’ll run whoever it is close for the title.”
Torres is one of five Liverpool players in the Spain squad to face England in Seville on Wednesday and although his club manager has been nursing him back to fitness gradually, Vicente Del Bosque is expected to use him.
Carragher said: “At the moment Fernando is just coming back to fitness and he played into extra-time on Wednesday and now he’ll be going away with Spain so given the injuries he’s had this season the manager is being very careful with him.
“He’s doing okay with the goals he’s scoring but he’s not quite 100%. Given that, if he keeps coming on and scoring then we’ve got something to look forward to in the coming months when he is fully fit.”
Some glaring individual errors from Portsmouth’s former Liverpool duo Peter Crouch and David James handed their ex-team victory at Fratton Park.
And Carragher admitted that with a two-week break ahead of them because of their FA Cup exit, it was important to bounce back with a win following their derby defeat.
He said: “There are small details in football, little things which can change games. Against Everton we were a little bit unlucky that it went against us but against Portsmouth it went for us but that’s football.
“It’s a massive result for us because the next game is two weeks away. If we’d have gone into that break off a bad result it would have been hanging over us for a couple of weeks. We had an opportunity here a couple of days after the Everton game which was vital for us.
“It wasn’t too bad because we got the three points because we didn’t want to wait a long time to get a result and the Manchester City game is a couple of weeks away.”
For the first time this season, Liverpool switched to a back three formation with Carragher marshalling Martin Skrtel and Daniel Agger either side of him but the skipper claimed there was no problem adapting to the alternative system.
He said: “We were fine with the three at the back – we’ve played that a lot of times under Benitez.
“We haven’t played it this season but we’ve done it plenty of times before under Rafa and we always seem to get good results with it.”
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