RAFAEL BENITEZ has admitted he had no option but to push Fernando Torres through the pain barrier in the defeat at Fulham and he now acknowledges the striker is a serious doubt for the vital Champions League match away to Lyon on Wednesday night.
Benitez had agonised, as he had done before the Manchester United game the previous weekend, over whether to start with Torres or use him as a second-half substitute against Fulham and he said that injury problems elsewhere in his squad had forced his hand. The manager also suggested inquests would potentially have been stoked by Torres’s omission from the starting line-up.
“The question is, if you don’t play Torres from the beginning, you will be talking about why he is not playing so it’s a difficult decision,” said Benitez, who pointed out that Torres had needed “four days to be ready” again, after playing 80 minutes against United. “We decided to start with Torres at Fulham because he could do a proper warm-up but after, we knew we needed to take him out at a certain moment.
“We decided on 60 minutes because the last time, with 80 minutes, he needed four days to be fit. But still, he was not 100 per cent fit. We decided to take him out around 60 minutes because we want to protect the player and because I don’t want to lose a player for one month.”
Torres, who has endured pain-killing injections on the groin that he injured while on international duty with Spain last month, played for 63 minutes in Saturday’s 3-1 defeat at Craven Cottage and had scored Liverpool’s equaliser before he was brought off for Ryan Babel, although he appeared short of peak fitness.
Benitez, who maintained throughout the early part of the season he had sufficient back-up for Torres in Babel, Dirk Kuyt, Andriy Voronin and David Ngog, was asked whether he had been tempted to rest Torres entirely to give him a better chance of recovery. Only Ngog, of this group, was unavailable on Saturday. “But the problems that we have now with injuries . . . you cannot play in too many games without [Steven] Gerrard, without Torres, without [Glen] Johnson, without [Albert] Riera and without a lot of other players,” Benitez said. “If they are fit, you have to try and use the players.”
Benitez faces an anxious wait not only on Torres for the Lyon match, in which defeat would probably put Liverpool out of the Champions League, but also on Gerrard. Like Torres, Gerrard picked up a groin injury on international duty last month and the club captain has since managed only 25 minutes, in the home defeat to Lyon. Gerrard could require an operation and is unlikely to play at Lyon.
Manchester United are to write an open letter to their fans in which Alex Ferguson will appeal for an end to the chants aimed at Arsene Wenger whenever Arsenal visit Old Trafford. Wenger is routinely subjected to a chorus of “sit down you paedophile” and the champions are so embarrassed Ferguson has agreed to back his old adversary. “We have gone on the record several times about this disgusting chant. We don’t condone it and have appealed to fans several times in the past but to no avail,” a United spokesman said. Guardian Service
HODGSON OPTIMISTIC ABOUT DUFF
WITH A fortnight to go before the first leg of the World Cup qualifying play-offs against France, Damien Duff’s non-appearance for the second half of Fulham’s game against Liverpool on Saturday wouldn’t have done much for Republic of Ireland manager Giovanni Trapattoni’s mood, but Fulham manager Roy Hodgson insisted yesterday he is optimistic the winger will be fit for the games, writes Mary Hannigan.
Duff suffered an Achilles strain that rules him out of Fulham’s Europa League game away to Rome on Thursday, but Hodgson said if he was fit to play in Sunday’s Premier League match at Wigan then “there’s no reason why he shouldn’t play for the Republic”.
“It is very hard stopping Damien playing for the Republic of Ireland. You have to lock him in a cage,” he said. “It’s an injury he has been struggling with for a while. It stems from his Achilles, although it’s a little bit more complicated than that. There is no way I would even consider him for Roma. I will ask the medical staff to take as long as they need to try to get him back into shape as quickly as they can.”
Tottenham’s Robbie Keane was also substituted on Saturday on 65 minutes in the 3-0 defeat at Arsenal, but while he had shown some discomfort after a heavy challenge not long before his departure, his withdrawal appeared to be a tactical move on his manager Harry Redknapp’s part after a largely ineffective display.
Trapattoni, at least, will hope it was no more than that.
