Not Michael Owen. Not Djibril Cisse. Not Fernando Morientes. Not Emile Heskey. Certainly not Sean Dundee, Eric Meijer or Neil Mellor. Football is a game that tends to defy explanation by statistics, but there is surely a significance in the fact that when Fernando Torres headed Liverpool in front three minutes after half-time yesterday, he became their first player to score 20 league goals in a season since Robbie Fowler in 1995-96.
Whether that is down to the deficiencies of those forwards or of the creators who were supposed to supply them - or to a general negativity of approach - is debatable, but seeing Torres in the sort of form that has brought him nine goals in his last six games it is hard to draw any other conclusion but that Liverpool have missed such a ruthless presence. "If the team continue playing well, he will score more," said manager Rafa Benitez. "He is always a threat and in wide areas we have players who can beat defenders to create chances. If the opposition play high he can get behind them."
His goal yesterday wasn't particularly difficult - an unchallenged conversion of Steven Gerrard's free kick three minutes after half-time - but it was decisive. Had Liverpool continued to waste chances as they did towards the end of the first half, it might just have become an edgy afternoon; as it was they were able to keep missing the target in relative security.
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utusanLFC :
Of course, Liverpool's rich vein of form has much to do with Fernando Torres, a man who just cannot seem to stop scoring. Goal 27 of the campaign, his ninth in the past five games, proved to be the winner here as the Spaniard rose unchallenged in the 48th minute to head Gerrard's free-kick from the left past Marcus Hahnemann. I said it before that Torres will score 30 goals in all competition. 7 league games to go and 2 more CL will definitely see Torres passed that mark, easily!
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