Recently by Ian Rush

I'M expecting to see a fired up Fernando Torres take out his frustration on Benfica at Anfield on Thursday night.

A lot has been made about Rafa Benitez's decision to take Torres off with 25 minutes to go at St Andrew's on Sunday.

Torres clearly wasn't happy about going off and that was good to see as it showed just how much he cares.

IT was a fantastic to watch Liverpool make such light work of Sunderland. We did everything right from start to finish.

I was pleased to see us playing 20 yards further up the pitch.

It made a difference to the way we played, helping the players close the opposition down quicker and get the ball moving well.

WHEN times are testing, inevitably criticism intensifies - especially when you lose to Manchester United.

It was only to be expected that there was a fallout from Sunday's 2-1 defeat at Old Trafford and many are now saying that Liverpool's hopes of a top four finish are all but over.

If that proves to be the case, it would be wrong to say the season came off the rails just because we lost away to our biggest rivals as, quite simply, that is not the case.

Put things into context - on its own, you can bounce back from a defeat to United but when you lose to them, having previously been turned over by Portsmouth, Wigan and Sunderland, that's where your problems begin to really mount up.

MONDAY night's impressive demolition of Portsmouth at Anfield was the ideal start to a crucial week for Liverpool.

It was so pleasing to see us play the kind of attacking football that has been lacking in recent months.

It's easy to dismiss it as being 'only' Portsmouth, but they are FA Cup semi-finalists and can be dangerous on their day as we discovered at Fratton Park back in December.

LIVERPOOL managed a feat on Monday that many would have thought impossible - they lost twice on the same night.

If it was not bad enough seeing Wigan Athletic take three precious points, the defeat at the DW Stadium effectively saw us relinquish pole position in the race for the Champions League; things, from this moment, are going to be exceptionally hard.