LFC 3-2 'BORO: THE VERDICT

Fernando Torres hit a stunning hat-trick to sink Middlesbrough and help the Reds go fourth in the Premier League. Here's the best of the post-match reaction.

The local paper
Apart from his well known and understandable aversion to the penalty spot, there can be few things in football which strike as much fear into the heart of Middlesbrough boss Gareth Southgate as the sight of Fernando Torres bearing down on goal. Four goals scored in just two games against the Teessiders tells its own story but the sub-plot to the tale is that without their new iconic front man Liverpool may not have taken a single point from either of these matches. At the Riverside last month, a Torres strike from fully 30 yards gave the Reds a point in a game which appeared to be slipping away from them, and at Anfield on Saturday he again came up with the goods with a superb hat-trick which delivered all three.
The Echo

The player
It's the second hat-trick of my Liverpool career so it was a very happy day for me. It was fantastic to score a hat-trick in front of the Kop. It was my first at Anfield and I feel very comfortable playing here. Twenty-one goals is my best season yet and we still have a maximum of 18 games to go, in the Premier League and Champions League, so hopefully I can score more. I'm happy when the team wins, I'm not thinking about scoring 30.
Fernando Torres

The boss
I was really happy with the performance. I think coming after a Champions League game the most important thing was to win. After we scored the third goal on the counter attack you could see that we could score more, but they put us under a bit of pressure because they have some good players in attack. It's always difficult to score more than 20 goals, but Torres has done it in his first season. We knew that he was a player with power and pace, he can kill defenders with his pace.
Rafael Benitez

The former player
Torres was terrific and it was important for us to win this game after our fantastic midweek display. Torres showed just how important he is to this Liverpool team and his second goal was world class.
Phil Neal

The fan
We had our fair share of luck today, although Torres made some of his own with his perseverance and vision. A terrific hat-trick. Mascherano is like the Duracell bunny who never runs out of energy! We have to be pleased with the win as Middlesborough tried to bully us.
Bilsland, LFC.TV Message Boards