Anfield big three want Kop to inspire return to glory days

RAFAEL BENITEZ, Steven Gerrard and Sami Hyypia have appealed to the Kop to inspire a reprisal of Liverpool’s great European performances when Olympiacos visit Anfield next month for a critical Champions League match.

The manager, club captain and former skipper believe the crowd can propel Liverpool to a victory which is imperative for the club to stand a chance of reaching the knock-out stages.

Benitez has seen his squad ripped apart by injuries, and he will have to dig deeper into the club’s resources to find a strike-force for the tie.

A 1-0 defeat in Monaco, where the winning goal from Javier Saviola seemed to be preceded by a handball by the Argentinian, has left Liverpool’s chances of reaching the last 16 looking bleak.

Liverpool must win 1-0 or by two clear goals to finish in the top two of Group D.

Benitez is set to be without strikers Djibril Cisse, Milan Baros and Luis Garcia, but he said: “It will be difficult but we can do it. At Anfield, with our supporters behind us and the team playing well, we can achieve anything. We do not seem to be getting much luck at the moment, do we?”

Gerrard backed up his manager, stating: “We can do it at Anfield, with the fans behind us. It was a bitter blow to lose the way we did in Monaco, but we can turn that around on our own ground.”

It was not only Garcia, employed as a winger on Tuesday night, who returned from Monte Carlo in a sorry state. His hamstring injury arrived early in the game, and later on, his fellow Spaniard Josemi required 20 stitches to a head wound after an accidental collision.

Benitez admits the disruption destroyed his game plan, saying: “We were missing several players through injury and we decided to play with wingers and a target man.

“But when you lose one of the wingers after only a few minutes, you have to change everything you have planned. And then when you lose a full-back in Josemi, it means you must change again and end up with Steve Finnan forced to full-back and again no winger to help the target man.”

Defender Sami Hyypia was riled by the failure of the officials to spot Saviola’s handball last night.

He said: “I do not know where this game is going because the referee said to me that he saw the handball but he felt the arm was close to the body.

“I don’t know about that, the ball was handled. If he had said to me he did not see it then, fair enough, you can’t see everything. But he did not say that, it was a big disappointment to lose a game like that.”

Gerrard’s return from injury was the only plus point from a bad night. He will require more games to build up his fitness, but by the date of the Olympiacos match - December 8 - he should be raring to go.

By that time, youngster Neil Mellor might also have bedded down in the team.