Liverpool Must Beat Everton Sans Torres, And Rafa Compares Himself To Manchester United and Arsenal Legends

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The Sun, in between asking us which Spice Girl has the best breasts, is reporting that Fernando Torres might be unavailable for next week’s Merseyside derby, one which will no doubt prompt a facial expression from Rafa akin to trapping his gonads in his zipper but will make David Moyes sleep far more soundly.

Torres missed Spain’s 3-1 win in Denmark on Saturday after picking up a thigh strain in training but Spain’s doctor said : “He wants to play in the next game.” A decision on Torres’ fitness should be made later today. Rafa shouldn’t be too worried though, isn’t Harry “Hara Kiri” Kewell back from injury?

Rafa Benitez has also leapt like a goateed salmon to the defence of Momo Sissoko, who has been coming under increased criticism of late, and was the target of the mythical boo-boys during the Marseilles game.

Rafa said:

“Momo was a key player when we won 82 points in the Premier League in 2006. Now we need to give him time to allow him to regain his confidence. I spoke to him after the Marseille game and said ‘keep going’. He knows how I work because I managed him when he was 18 at Valencia, where he won the league and UEFA Cup with me. He knows I have a lot of confidence in him. I will push him and I will try to improve him.”

Benitez obviously has his eyes on upcoming crunch games against Everton, Besiktas and Arsenal, and also showed how annoyed he was with Liverpool’s pitifully ineffective performance against Marseilles. Benitez said, amongst other things, in this warm-up rant, that only people with the right mentality can play for Liverpool.:

“I was really disappointed and angry after we lost to Marseille, but being angry doesn’t change anything.You have to analyse why we’ve played so bad some days and why we were so good at the beginning of the season.To play for Alex Ferguson or Arsene Wenger you need a special mentality and it’s the same for us. At Liverpool players know they must have quality, must work hard and have a strong mentality. That’s the only way to win trophies.”

Benitez is definitely one of the top coaches in Europe, but he’ll have to win a few league titles to stand alongside Sir Alex and Arsene.