Roy Hodgson has admitted Fernando Torres is still not at his best, despite the striker having a hand in both of Liverpool’s goals against Manchester United.
The Spaniard has struggled to reach peak fitness in time for the start of the campaign after he suffered an injury-plagued summer, in which he still featured for his national side in South Africa.
Torres won Liverpool’s penalty for their first goal and the striker’s movement caused problems for John O’Shea, which led to the United defender fouling the 26-year-old. Steven Gerrard scoring from the resulting free-kick.
Hodgson has defended the form of his striker and still maintains Torres needs a combination of games and training before he can get back to his best.
“I don’t think he [Fernando Torres] is firing on all cylinders,” Hodgson told Sky Sports.
“Fernando’s [Torres] performance was a lot better [than last week against Birmingham City]. He is a player who needs more games, more time and more training.
“Manchester United do not often surrender possession, so it was difficult for him.
“We’ll get a tremendous amount of use from him this season.”
After watching his side pull level from two goals behind, Hodgson could do nothing to prevent Dimitar Berbatov from completing his hat-trick and subsequently earning United the three points.
“We deserved to get back in the game, we were unlucky to go 2-0 down,” said Hodgson.
“Conceding late is always tough, and we’re disappointed in that but otherwise we made a really good effort to bring us back into the game.
“If we had more composure we could have seen the game out.”
Previous encounters have been billed as high-intensity affairs but Sunday’s fixture was subdued, with both sides opting to withhold any full-blooded challenges. Hodgson believes the cagey start from both teams was the result of a good defensive display all round.
“A lot of teams have respect for each other,” explained Hodgson.
“We contained well and their front players didn’t receive too many balls.
“It was more a question of good defending and the goals meant we were forced to create chances and it opened up in the second half.”
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