The answer is yes. An unremarkable match was lit up by the brilliance of our number 9. 3-2. Job done. There have been many days when we deserved more than we got but failed due to bad finishing. Here, we finished well without playing well. Boro might feel that they could have gotten a draw but the finishing of the kid proved the difference.

Torres helped himself to three and could have ad four only for a superb save from Swartzer in the second half. The Boro defence were semi sucidal in their back passing and indecision. I think that the pressure and presence of El Nino caused them to panic and make errors. Arca headed back towards his keeper for Torres to latch onto and score his first. His second was a beautiful shot from distance after good work from Babel and Aurelio. Pick of the bunch. For his third, he closed in on a through ball from Kuyt. The keeper and defender managed to collide and Fernando took full advantage to finish them off. That's 15 in the league for the season. I'm sure it would have been more if he hadn't missed a few games with injury. Where are those who were saying in August that he was over rated and we'd overpaid at £18m?

Our defence has had better games. I don't think that Arbeloa does as good a job at centre half as he does at full back. As a result our defensive line wasn't as sharp as usual. But Carra is back for the next match so we should be back to our usual solidity. Masherano did his usual stirling work in the middle. He's fast becoming my favourite Liverpool player. Babel did a decent job and set Kuyt up for a good chance in the first half. He seems to be benefiting from getting a run of starts. Gerrard was ok but hit a lovely free which Swartzer could only knock onto the post. With the race for fourth as close as it is, the points are more important than the performance at the moment. If we play badly and win for the rest of the season, I won't be complaining.

It's a short trip to the Reebok on Sunday. Bolton are doing ok, bar a 4-1 hammering today, and had a good result in the Uefa cup during the week. I thought Megson would be shit and take them down but they look like they might survive due to the teams below them being worse than them. So we'll have to go there and be up for it. These are the kind of games that we've been drawing and losing this year. I predict a draw.

It appears that there was some drama after the match yesterday. Tom Hicks son walked into the Sandon pub and was met with a hot reaction from the Reds inside. There seems to be some debate over what actually happened but I don't think that he was met with open arms. Can't say that I'm surprised. He was badly advised if he expected otherwise.

I hate Boro. They are a sad, small time club who play stupid music when their team (occasionally) score. This makes it even more galling when they manage to hold us to a draw. I've nothing against Southgate but I don't think he's doing a great job. He'll be happy enough with how he did against us.

I didn't get to see the match yesterday but saw highlights. From what I saw and read, we were fairly lethargic until we scored and we launched a late barrage. But it's another case of too little, too late. We should have been at them from the off, rather than giving them the impetus to get a goal in front and have them trying to hit us on the break. The goal wasn't great from a defensive point of view and looks like it should have been dealt with.

But yet again that kid Torres gets us out of jail. He decided that he wasn't going to take being beaten by a rabble like Boro and ran at them before unleashing an unstoppable shot. That's 11 league goals already. There is some talk that we are too easy to stop offensively as our goal threat lies only in Gerrard and el Nino. There is some truth in that but I'm hoping that Babel will start to add to the threat. He went close a few times yesterday. But it is a point that we do need to spread not only the goals, but also the attacking threat around a bit more.

Rafa says that he's going to pick his strongest team against Luton on Tuesday night. I was hoping to see the likes of Insua and maybe Nemeth get a run out but I would imagine that Rafa is trying to get back to winning ways first. As I've said before, the domestic cups are nice competitions to win but don't matter much if you lose.

It now looks as if Momo will not be going to Juve. But the same article from Sky Sports has quotes from Mancini at Inter who seem to be interested in him too. I like Momo but he hasn't been the same since his injury and I would be in favour of letting him go if we get a good price.


Rafa has signed Martin Skrtel from Zenit St Petersberg. He is big, strong, young and quick according to Rafa. These are qualities that we could definitely do with in our defense. The fee has been debated and it's either £4m or £6.5m depending on who you listen to. I don't think that we'll be doing any more purchases this month but we may see Momo leave.

There has been some speculation in the observer and some other papers today that Hicks and Gillett are having problems refinancing their debt and they may sell up. DIC from Dubai, who failed to buy the club last year, are rumoured to be interested in buying them out. The DIC rumours have been bubbling under on the forums for the last few months so it's nothing new. I'm not going to say too much about the boardroom wranglings because, frankly it bores me.

Let's twat the hatters.