Hansen: Reds Relying Too Much On Star Duo

Liverpool legend Alan Hansen believes the club 's Premier League malaise is being exasperated by the rapidly dwindling form of Fernando Torres. The former Anfield stalwart suggests the Spaniard 's below- par performances has left Steven Gerrard endeavouring to carry a side that has been in gradual decline for some time, and that Roy Hodgson is left in a predicament as to whether or not he should continue to play the former Atletico Madrid prodigy, as the striker looks like a shadow of his former self. Liverpool's 2-0 defeat to Everton at the weekend left them languishing in the 19th place in the Premier League following poor results against Sunderland and Blackpool, and Hansen suggests the club is paying the price for solely relying on Gerrard and Torres, the latter of whom is in a crisis of confidence. The Liverpool legend told the Daily Telegraph: "Liverpool are paying the price for relying so heavily for so long on two men: Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres. "For several years, they have turned to them to win games, to get them out of trouble. For years, they produced. "Suddenly, one of the two is proving ineffective. "It is Torres who is of concern. No player has ever become a superstar at Liverpool in such a short space of time. "Yet he has gone from being a world-beater to the sort of striker any defender would relish marking. "His game has always relied on pace and sharpness, and at the moment he has neither. "Like Wayne Rooney, he looks as though he has never seen a football before. "Hodgson is caught in a Catch 22, because the only way to help Torres recapture the form which terrorised the rest of the Premier League for so long is to offer him the playing time he needs. "Every time he plays, though, he looks worse, he loses a little bit more confidence and the problem becomes more entrenched. "There is an argument that Torres needs more help from his team-mates, but then he did not need that assistance three years ago, when he was more than capable of picking the ball up and comfortably beating three men. "His confidence is so low now, though, that every time he received possession yesterday, he looked to play it backwards. "That is not the Fernando Torres of old. "Because he has effectively been removed from the equation, Liverpool now find themselves looking to Gerrard to win games on his own. "