WHEN the opposing supporters are sporting your name and number on their shirts and they’re as disappointed as their rival fans at your absence, you know you’ve made it.

And the fact that Fernando Torres failed to make last night’s reunion with his former employers was as big a blow to expectation and anticipation as the failure of Diego Maradona to grace Anfield with his presence.

Torres is indeed a big miss. For both the travelling hordes who idolised him for so many years and those who have inherited that hero-worship.

The key difference is, Liverpool’s anguish over his absence goes way beyond last night. The reason Liverpool were so keen to get qualification sewn up was so they could keep key players fresh for resuming their title challenge.

In fact, the only reason there was so much at stake last night was because a lack of a clinical and ruthless finisher cost them victory in Madrid two weeks ago.

It also cost them their unbeaten league record at the weekend, when for most of the game they made Spurs look like the bottom-of-the-table side they are and inexplicably failed to cast them further adrift.

With Torres around, it’s safe to say that wouldn’t have happened – and they might not have had to rely on an injury-time penalty to rescue a point last night either.

When the 24-year-old limped out of Spain’s game with Belgium last month, his club wasn’t just losing its star striker but a star striker bang in form.

His hot streak – that had yielded four goals from his last two Premier League – was frustratingly suspended in mid-air. The fact Liverpool’s ambitions haven’t yet suffered a similar fate since is testament to the players Benitez has at his disposal. They are still well placed in the league and should still sail through to the knockout stages if the evidence of earlier meetings with Marseille and PSV Eindhoven is anything to go by.

But this can’t go on for much longer, even if Liverpool’s run of games over the next month looks more like a Christmas list than a fixture list.