Benitez raises Reds' title hopes
LIVERPOOL: Rafael Benitez insisted that Liverpool is well-placed to end its 18-year wait for a league title after climbing to third in the Premiership with a comfortable 4-0 victory against Bolton.
Goals from Sami Hyypia, Fernando Torres and Ryan Babel, plus a Steven Gerrard penalty, proved too much for Bolton, which suffered its first league defeat under recently appointed manager Gary Megson.
But with 21-million-pound signing Torres looking impressive as he netted his 11th goal in 17 appearances for the club, Benitez claimed that Liverpool now has what it takes to overhaul Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United to win the title.
Benitez said: "We have to play a lot of games in December and January, so let's see. We must keep the squad focused and concentrated.
"But in the last three years, we have been too far away from the leaders at this time of the season, yet we are now closer and we have a better squad, so I have confidence.
"Let us wait until we get to the end of January, though, before we see what the situation is then. We have confidence and we will keep going and hope that the other teams make mistakes.
"But I have a lot of confidence in the team for the second half of the season if we stay close to the others. We can improve and some of our players are already playing very well."
Torres, a club-record buy from Atletico Madrid during the close season, is proving to be a crucial figure for Liverpool with his goal threat and Benitez admits that the Spain striker is carrying the goalscoring burden at Anfield.
He said: "When you have a striker who can score 20 goals a season, it can sometimes make it easy for the defenders not to score. But when you have a 20-goal striker, you need other players to score 15 goals and I think we have that.
"The team played well. It wasn't fantastic, but it was a good game and we created a lot of chances. We scored four and it could have been more, so I must be pleased with the performance of the team."
Bolton remains in trouble at the wrong end of the table just eight days after beating champion Manchester United at the Reebok and Megson admits that his players simply failed to perform against Benitez's team.
AFP
(China Daily 12/04/2007 page23)
