Rafa Benitez may at last have found his finest XI

Nov 12 2007 by Nick Smith, Liverpool Daily Post

LIKE anyone who kicks a habit, the lesson of ‘all things in moderation’ is a valuable one to learn. And so it could now prove for Rafael Benitez, who fell off the rotation wagon on Saturday but dusted himself off to make the subtle changes that brought a first home Premier League win for more than two months.

The Liverpool manager has spent the best part of three years altering his line-ups from game to game. In that time he has only named consecutive starting XIs once and even that seemed to only be to deny his harshest critics the satisfaction of pointing out that he had reached a century of successive bouts of team-tweaking.

But on Saturday he stuck to the side that destroyed Besiktas and tinkering with it during the game instead of before ultimately paid rich dividends.

Admittedly that’s not difficult when you have Fernando Torres to bring on – but keeping it simple is something Benitez hasn’t always been able to grasp when judging how best to shuffle his pack.

Despite a certain phone-in presenter not appreciating the shambles that was Torres’s last hasty return from injury against Arsenal two weeks ago, his introduction was perfectly timed both as insurance against a repeat of a similar lapse and in terms of the way the game was heading.

In short, a fifth draw in six Premier League games at Anfield, debilitating to the hopes of even a side still unbeaten in mid-November.

To that end, it’s no problem whatsoever that Liverpool had to rely on Torres to breakdown Lawrie Sanchez’s battlers – all successful title-chasing operations need a Plan B. And when it works so emphatically, there really is nothing to worry about. After all, Fulham are no Besiktas.

Granted, they’re certainly not six goals better them but no matter how dire their distribution is when they get possession, no struggling side in the Premier League ever gives in to the pathetic extent the Turks did on Tuesday.

Anyone expecting Liverpool to pick up that baton with a smooth changeover was always going to be disappointed.

True to form, Fulham, just like their coach Dave Beasant’s curly mop, refused to budge. Easing a class act like Torres on for the final stages instead of overloading his workload by rushing him back in from the start, meant the stage was perfectly set for the Spaniard.

Sanchez insisted his ‘soft’ shot for the opening goal was a miss-hit but that’s classic beaten-manager nonsense. When Dirk Kuyt received the ball in those inside-right areas at Blackburn a week ago, he desperately looked for help from his team-mates instead of haring towards goals and his indecision wrecked those situations.

No such danger when Torres had a similar one as another evening ebbed towards more frustrating stalemate. His exploitation of the opportunity was one a Setanta scheduler mapping out the Christmas rotas would have been proud of – like all match-winning goalscorers, his instinct ruled out all other options apart from scoring.

One shift inside and casual placement inside the near post beyond a stationary (and superbly in-form) goalkeeper later, it was pretty much game over given the ineptitude of the opponents at the other end.

Torres’s overall presence had already made that 81st-minute deadlock-breaker something of an inevitability and fellow substitute Ryan Babel didn’t exactly allow them to put their feet up in front of the fire on an unforgiving wintry night either.

Far clumsier and altogether less convincing than Torres the Dutchman may be but, unlike Sky’s one-and-three-quarter hour Champions League pre-amble, there’s never a dull moment.

He played Peter Crouch in for the clinching penalty and in that moment underlined how Benitez had on this occasion got his team changes just right – the impact players arriving on cue to deliver the all-important three points.

Of course, such an outcome at home to Fulham should be routine and the fact that it wasn’t is one to ponder during the next irritating two-week break.

But at least Benitez can spend it wondering if the side he finished Saturday’s game with might finally have provided him with the elusive nugget of information his encyclopaedic football knowledge has been missing. The identity of his best XI.