Liverpool 3 Middlesbrough 2:HE HAS the pin-up looks, the flecked blond hair and, in school playgrounds across the Merseyside area, he is fast becoming the Merlin sticker everybody wants. It is easy, too, to imagine Liverpool's maternity hospitals will soon be reporting a flurry of Fernandos.
The man in question is Fernando Torres, the first Liverpool player to score 20 goals in a season since Michael Owen five years ago and the only credible challenger to Cristiano Ronaldo and Cesc Fabregas when it comes to dishing out this season's individual awards. Torres's hat-trick on Saturday reaffirms Liverpool have a striker of brilliance.
To say that Torres won this game on his own would be mildly unfair on some of his team-mates, but only just. What cannot be disputed is there were the tell-tale signs of another chastening Saturday for Rafael Benitez before those moments when the club's most prized asset turned the game upside down. Admittedly Torres was aided and abetted by some abject defending and goalkeeping, but that is what great players do: they unnerve their opponents and force errors, often by doing little more than being in the same area of the pitch.
The goal that confirmed another match ball for Torres's collection was a case in point, his mere presence proving enough to unsettle David Wheater and Mark Schwarzer.
Torres's first goal demonstrated that, one on one, he is the most lethal striker in English football. The second was all about power and precision and his third was a more difficult finish than he made it look. The Spaniard then gave an equally accomplished performance in front of the microphones.
"It's the second hat-trick of my Liverpool career so it's a very happy day for me," he said. "But I would prefer to be remembered as someone who helped Liverpool to win trophies than a great goalscorer. I'm here to win titles and the Champions League is a very important target for me this season. I've got to score goals because it's my job but it's not the most important thing for me and I can consider the season a success only if we win something.
"I'm 23 and I've never won a medal. The only time was when I was an under-16 and under-19 player and that's too long ago."
His individual repertoire of talents - two-footed, a brilliant sense of anticipation, fast and penetrative and, in front of goal, blessed with the calmness of a bomb disposal expert - did at least offer hope among a generally underwhelmed Anfield crowd. Yet he will not often be presented with the type of chances that led to his first goal, when Middlesbrough's captain Julio Arca attempted an inexplicable header back to his goalkeeper from 40 yards and did not even get it to the penalty area.
Southgate's side had exposed Liverpool's shortcomings - and a wonky offside trap - to take the lead in the ninth minute, courtesy of Tuncay Sanli's header from Stewart Downing's crisp free-kick.
They might have felt confident of grabbing a late equaliser, too, once Downing had stabbed a shot beyond Jose Reina to make it 3-2. Yet Jeremie Aliadiere's little swipe at Javier Mascherano enticed a red card from the referee's back pocket and the momentum was lost. The Frenchman's naivety for reacting to Mascherano's snide little nose-tweak will cost him a three-game ban and Middlesbrough will get a mandatory €66,343 fine from the Football Association - it being the second time this season they have compelled a referee to brandish yellow or red cards on six occasions.
