LONDON: Rafael Benitez (pic) hailed Liverpool’s 4-0 demolition of Real Madrid as perfect preparation for Saturday’s Premier League showdown with Manchester United.
“When you have an important game coming up, if the players play well and score four goals against a top side like Real Madrid you have to be really pleased,” the Spaniard said. “As a manager maybe it is the best way to approach a big game.”
The return of Fernando Torres from injury helped inspire what was arguably Liverpool’s finest display of the season, albeit one that came against a Real side that looked shambolic in defence at times.
The irrepressible Torres opened the scoring after quarter of an hour, a penalty from Steven Gerrard killed the tie and the Liverpool captain’s second and a late effort from substitute Andrea Dossena sent Benitez’s men into the last eight for the fourth time in his five seasons in charge.
Benitez admitted Real had been caught cold by Liverpool’s unexpectedly offensive approach to what had been anticipated as a much more cagey encounter.
“We knew that maybe they were expecting that we would play deep and try to play on the counter-attack,” Benitez added.
“From the beginning we tried to put pressure on them and we kept on top of them from the beginning to the end.” — AFP
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