COMMENT: How Fernando Torres is overtaking the past masters

Dec 3 2007 by Ben Thornley, Liverpool Daily Post

Liverpool FC's Fernando Torres celebrates _180

FOR all the lyrical vividness of football’s most famous stand, occasionally the Kop’s message is most emphatically delivered without the need for poetic garnish.

While Anfield jeered the return of the only number nine in Liverpool ’s history to finish a season without a league strike, the current occupant of that shirt was afforded the ultimate tribute, as he extended his tally to 11 goals in just 17 appearances.

As Fernando Torres was withdrawn for Dirk Kuyt, after a majestic 77-minute display of power, panache and precision finishing in yesterday’s 4-0 victory, his substitution was met with a chant strictly reserved for Liverpool legends. Known as the ‘Dalglish’ or ‘Fowler chant’ depending on your age, it is effectively a series of claps followed by the insertion of the player’s name.

Sometimes, even for supporters with as varied a hymn-sheet as the Anfield faithful, only the simplistic will suffice. Torres’s Liverpool career is still in its infancy, but there is no better judge of talent on the stands of English football.

The Kop has celebrated many cult figures in recent seasons but still nothing quite excites its inhabitants like a player of Torres’s calibre.

Even his team-mates greeted his exit with a round of applause, such was his contribution to this triumph over a primitive Bolton side which has no place in the top flight.

His stunning goal on the stroke of half-time – Liverpool’s second of the afternoon, and according to Rafael Benitez, the most important – encapsulated his performance.

Steven Gerrard picked out the Spain striker’s searing run with a delightfully weighted 40-yard pass. He burst beyond Bolton’s defence before finishing with a delightful, dinked effort from an acute angle. Fantastic stuff.

As would any player with his vision, the Liverpool captain clearly enjoys playing alongside the club record signing. This was the kind of capture Gerrard – who netted his side’s third from the spot and also had a hand in the other two – had demanded when he questioned the ambition of the Anfield outfit three years previously.

While Gerrard has forged an excellent understanding with countryman Peter Crouch, the Whiston-born playmaker has not enjoyed this kind of on-field relationship with a striker since the departure of Michael Owen.

Torres, however, offers much more than the Newcastle man. Like Owen, the former Atletico skipper’s breathtaking pace enables him to create chances out of nothing, constantly forcing the opposition onto the back foot.

In one such moment, Torres collected a wayward pass from Ricardo Gardner on 34 minutes before bursting past his markers Abdoulaye Meite and Lubomir Michalik, only to fire across the face of goal from a difficult position.

Accompanied by an appetite for the grittier aspects of Premier League football, Liverpool are a completely different prospect with his inclusion – a force capable of challenging for the title.

While Torres’s capture could prove to be the defining transfer of Benitez’s reign, El Hadji Diouf represented everything that was wrong with the latter years of his predecessor’s regime.

In an ineffective display brought to an end by Wanderers manager Gary Megson after just 66 minutes, Diouf reminded Anfield exactly what they were not missing, the sneering forward providing a stark contrast to the cheery persona of the current number nine.

Booed by the home fans throughout, he failed to stamp his mark on the contest, even if he did leave an imprint on the ankle of the excellent Alvaro Arbeloa with a disgusting lunge that should have earned the Senegalese a red card.

Also true to type, the Bolton forward at least provided the Anfield Road end with one moment of entertainment, when he fluffed an attempted trick as he made his way to the corner flag. His off-field flamboyance was never matched by similar exuberance on a pitch with which he was more acquainted to in a prone position.

Even his list of indiscretions, however, which include spitting at opposing fans, celebrating Marseille’s UEFA Cup victory over Liverpool in 2003 and a pathetic penchant for diving, might perhaps have been overlooked by Liverpool’s supporters had he possessed Torres’s talent.