IAN RUSH: Time to let Torres-Crouch partnership work

Feb 5 2008

PETER CROUCH and Fernando Torres are often described as the most natural striking partnership at Anfield.

There’s no doubt that they’re the most in-form pairing at present, so I think now is the time to see if they can develop into a decent strike force.

Saturday’s match against Sunderland was only the third time they’ve started a match together in the Premier League, and there were one or two signs that they could flourish.

But the fact is we will never know unless we give them a chance to gel.

I’ve written before that Peter Crouch has done nothing wrong this season, and with three goals in his last three appearances he’s flying.

But his presence can also help Fernando Torres.

By virtue of his height alone, he occupies one or two defenders, giving Torres more room to operate in, and he showed with the flick-on that created Torres’ goal that he can be very much a traditional target man.

In situations like that it’s important that one player is able to anticipate the flick-ons of the other, but Torres is a very intelligent striker and that will never be a problem to a player of his class.

Crouch and Torres scored the goals which gave Liverpool the platform for what might have seemed a straightforward victory.

But throughout the first half especially it was anything but straightforward.

A goalless first half might have brought in my bet once again (draw half-time, Liverpool win full-time!) but it didn’t do much for the fans’ nerves.

Bob Paisley always used to tell us to have a shot or two in the first 10 minutes of a home match – it didn’t matter if it flew wide – it was just to get the crowd going.

Once the crowd got going then that generated a mood where you could really go at teams.

Throughout most of this season in our home matches we’ve been far too patient, cautiously probing for openings rather than going all for it.

We usually do have a 20 minute spell in the second half when we take control, but I’m sure we could do that much earlier by being a little more ambitious.

It took the Kop to start chanting “Attack! Attack!” before we finally started committing numbers forward and it was no surprise when a right-back crossed to spark the goal rush.

The three points was always going to be vitally important, and it was nice to score three goals into the bargain.

But just for once I wouldn’t mind if my half-time full-time bet didn’t come in, because we were already coasting by the interval!

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