Rafa Benitez hailed a ”perfect” victory over Newcastle, which sees Liverpool travel to Inter Milan in the Champions League highly confident of finishing the job they started at Anfield three weeks ago.
Another inspirational Fernando Torres performance propelled Benitez’s side to a comfortable 3-0 win over relegation-threatened Newcastle at Anfield on Saturday.
The Spain striker scored one and was involved in the other two as Liverpool clocked up a fifth successive win. They are now just two points behind third-placed Chelsea in the Premier League, although the London club do have two games in hand.
More importantly, they head for Milan to defend a 2-0 first-leg lead playing their best football of the season.
”We needed to win against Newcastle,” said Benitez. ”We scored three goals, conceded none and I was able to rest some players ahead of our Champions League game. Everything was perfect.”
Torres now has 25 goals since joining from Atletico Madrid for £26,5-million in pre-season.
In another game played on Saturday, Reading clinched a 2-0 win over Manchester City.