WHOEVER first coined the phrase “stop Fernando Torres and you stop Liverpool from scoring” would be sitting on a fortune had they had the foresight to demand royalties for each subsequent utterance.

Yet that tiresome idiom is losing some of its currency this season. While those same pundits fret over some lacklustre performances from the Spanish striker, they overlook the rest of Rafael Benitez’s attacking players have discovered their shooting boots.

With 13 goals in their first five games, Liverpool are the joint leading goalscorers in the Premier League alongside Arsenal.

Torres has netted just three of those, and also failed to find the target in the slender midweek Champions League victory over Debrecen.

But Benitez prefers to dwell on the positive of the goals being shared around the team, with Yossi Benayoun and Dirk Kuyt also netting three this campaign, Steven Gerrard and Glen Johnson twice and David Ngog once.

“As a manager you are expecting goals to come from everywhere,” says the Anfield manager. “If it is just the team’s top scorer who is scoring the goals it will be easier for opposition defenders. It’s important to have different players scoring goals.

“We have scored 13 goals already this season and we are happy with this figure but if Fernando can help improve this figure it will be much better.”

Torres admits to having grown frustrated in recent weeks at the rough treatment meted out by some opposing defenders determined to prove the aforementioned critique of the Spaniard’s importance to Liverpool.

The striker, though, this week expressed his desire not to be outdone by the Premier League bullies, and retains the full confidence of his manager.

“I was really pleased with Fernando on Wednesday,” says Benitez. “He was playing better, working very hard and these are the things we need from him.