Fernando Torres will again be missing from the Liverpool team to play Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park today having failed to recover sufficiently from a groin problem that Rafael Benítez believes will need to be monitored throughout the season.
Torres returned to training on Wednesday, exactly four weeks after his most recent Liverpool appearance, away to Lyons, and it had been hoped that the 25-year-old would be fit enough to return to Benítez’s starting XI against Blackburn but a lack of fitness has put paid to such optimism.
The Liverpool manager is already talking of the need to give Torres’s physical condition extra attention but remains hopeful that his record £20.2 million signing will have a big impact on the rest of the campaign and is expecting him to be ready for the Champions League group game against Fiorentina on Wednesday.
“Fernando has been training and doing part of the sessions,” Benítez said. “We played 30 minutes’ football the other day and he was involved in that, but he is still not fully fit and we don’t want to take a risk with him. Hopefully he can be with us for Fiorentina.
“He has more confidence now. Sometimes he feels a little bit of pain but now he can do things in training that he wasn’t able to do before. We will have to keep an eye on him during the season now. At least he is very positive and we think he will be able to carry on for the whole season.
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“When you have this kind of problem with the groin it can be very difficult to manage. We have had a conference with four specialists about Fernando and all of them had a different opinion, but we are confident we are doing the right thing with him.
“We have a good medical staff here and we have a few players who are doing specific fitness work as a precaution against certain injuries. We can do the same with Fernando. Since the first day, he was sure he didn’t need an operation and after talking to different doctors about his problem, we feel we have done the right thing with him.”
Torres’s absence means David Ngog, the 20-year-old French forward, will lead the Liverpool line.
Last season, Sam Allardyce, the Blackburn manager, accused Benítez of showing disrespect to his team after the Liverpool manager made a seemingly innocuous hand gesture during Liverpool’s 4-0 win over Blackburn at Anfield. Benítez attempted to defuse that particular situation, insisting that his thoughts about Allardyce before today’s game are dominated by a hope that his opposite number will make a complete recovery from the heart surgery he underwent last week.
“I wish him a speedy recovery, that is the main thing that I will say,” Benítez said. “The problems that you have as a manager are one thing but the person is the most important so I hope he can be fit and ready because that would make me really pleased.”