Torres Form A Worry For Hodgson

After watching Fernando Torres
contribute to both goals against
Manchester United Roy Hodgson
summed up the striker's overall
contribution to the match at Old
Trafford and admitted Torres is
some way off his peak.
Fouls on the Spaniard who
suffered injuries over the latter
part of last season and during
the World Cup yielded goals for
Steven Gerrard.
These were encouraging for the
Reds' boss but ultimately didn't
hide the lack of sharpness in a
game the forward has relished in
recent years.
"I don’t think he is firing on all
cylinders," Hodgson said.
"Fernando’s performance was a
lot better [than a week earlier at
Birmingham City]. He is a player
who needs more games, more
time and more training.
"Manchester United do not often
surrender possession, so it was
difficult for him.
"We’ll get a tremendous amount
of use from him this season."
Asked to consider whether
Liverpool were worth the point
denied them by Dimitar
Berbatov's late winner Hodgson
He added: "We deserved to get
back in the game, we were
unlucky to go 2-0 down.
"Conceding late is always tough,
and we’re disappointed in that
but otherwise we made a really
good effort to bring us back into
the game."
The Reds' boss continued "I
thought our second half
performance was really good
and we deserved to get back into
it. But we've conceded three
goals from crosses and we're
disappointed with that.
"Maybe if we'd had some more
composure at the end we'd have
been able to see it out."
"A lot of teams have respect for
each other. We contained well
and their front players didn’t
receive too many balls.
"It was more a question of good
defending and the goals meant
we were forced to create
chances and it opened up in the
second half."