Anfield Red

Liverpool can pull level with Aston Villa (and one point off Tottenham for fourth) on Monday evening with a victory over Birmingham City. That’s about the only certain thing we know right now. As for the injury news on Torres, Gerrard, et al – well you might as well just consider the starting XI a big surprise when the two clubs meet at Anfield for this Premier League tussle.

Steven Gerrard is rumoured to be on Rafa’s list of possible names for the bench or the starting XI, although I’d be shocked if he were in the latter group. Having barely trained in a fortnight, I just can’t see the manager running Gerrard out on a whim. I understand the importance of the match, but again, I just don’t thing the ends justify the means. I’d put the chances of him sitting on the bench at 50 percent.

But Gerrard isn’t the only massive injury concern. Fernando Torres, who was considered a big question mark, had a great week of practice and could once again feature for a club that desperately needs his quality.

“We hope to be able to keep going with Fernando. Maybe he can be available for Birmingham, we will see how it goes. It was a risk to play him against Manchester United, but he scored a fantastic goal and everyone was saying what a massive difference he makes.

“He played, and scored, at Fulham and I was criticised by a lot of ‘experts’ because he was taken off in the second half. They can see that he has a problem, but the same thing happened in Lyon when I took him off.

“Fernando will play if he continues to have less pain than before. Does he need an operation? Nobody really knows, we’ll wait and see. I have had many players with this problem over the years. They carried on, and sometimes you can play for the whole season with such a problem.”

Once again, it looks like Torres will be in this predicament all season. An injury only heals with time; and right, that’s something he doesn’t have on his side. I will say it was great hear he’ll be spared from Spain’s upcoming friendly. The extra rest could be paramount to his season-long success.

Hicks confirms he won’t sell stars
Far be it for me to believe anything coming out of Tom Hicks’ mouth, but it looks like he is speaking up regarding the potential loss of funds (massive funds) should the club miss the knockout stage of the Champions League.

As I’m sure we all expected, the papers are ripping Liverpool to shreds regarding the future of certain players. In an effort to calm fears, the Texan made it clear that the things won’t change at Anfield.

“None of our star players will be sold, regardless of results.

“The club is doing very well due to rapidly growing commercial revenues.

“We have significant investor interest and want to make sure that we pick high-quality partners.

“We are happy with the way things are going financially but we hoped things would be better on the pitch.”

Will he hold true to his word if we don’t advance to the knockout round? If he did, it’d be the first time he’s ever kept a promise since he first came to the club. That goes to show you what an “honourable” man he really is.