Reds wait on Fernando

Liverpool have not given up hope that star striker Fernando Torres will be fit to face Lyon on Wednesday night.

The Spanish ace is suffering with a groin problem that has stopped him training properly and has lead to his substitutions in recent matches but such is the importance of the Lyon game he may well be risked.

Liverpool's season is in danger of petering out before December and they desperately need some sort of result against the French giants to keep their season alive so Torres may well play.

"We will see how he is," Benitez told the Post "He needed four days (to recover) the last time, so we knew there would be a problem (for Fulham).

"We will see in the next couple of days how he is going to react to this. We knew it was going to be difficult for him to play and we had to decide.

"The other day, he played 80 minutes but needed four days to recover. He still has some problems but we had to decide whether to start with him (at Fulham) or use him from the bench.

"We decided that it was better to start with him, so he could warm-up properly. It was a difficult decision, as we knew it could be a risk and we might lose him for even more time.

We kept him on for 60 minutes then tried to protect the player. I prefer to lose a player for 20 or 30 minutes, not one month."