The Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez says that there are many injured players being risked by playing in the team at the moment, including captain Steven Gerrard, but he insists that he won’t be rushing Fernando Torres back into the team until he is sure that he is 100% fully fit.

“Fernando is close, but he still has some pain,” said Benitez. “We now have a week to work with him and for the physios to try to get him fit to play.

“We will monitor this every day and then decide. But we do not want to take any risks with him now, he needed three weeks of treatment and that is not fully completed yet.

“There is no deadline. We will have to decide after we have watched him working this week.”

As for the other walking wounded, Benitez praised their dedication by still wanting to play despite their injuries.

“Gerrard has found it hard. He has played three difficult games in a row without training for three weeks prior, and that is tough.

“People have to understand that some players are trying very hard to help the team when they are not really fit. But they want to play, and their attitude is very positive.

“Now we have a week of training, and I hope we will see a lot more of them fitter for the next game.”

Benitez added: “There are several players who maybe should not be out there at the moment. They are not fully fit, they are not training and they have injuries.

“But we are working so hard together. We are seeing players involved when they should really be on the treatment table.

“But they all wanted to play, to do a job for the team and to work to get us going again as a team.”

Thanks to Arsenal knocking the Reds out of the Carling Cup, the team will get a rare whole week to rest and work on the injured players, so hopefully there will be a fresher and happier team by next weekend.