Fans will be ‘key player’ as Benitez focuses on Chelsea

RAFAEL BENITEZ shrugged off his Liverpool shadow squad’s defeat at Portsmouth and vowed to confine the embarrassment of Fratton Park to a mere footnote by punching another big hole in Chelsea’s season at Anfield tomorrow night.

Benitez rested seven of the players who started the 1-0 first leg defeat in the European semi-final at Stamford Bridge. The Reds made the trek to the south coast without the likes of Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher, Peter Crouch and Jose Reina.

And he saw a team of apparent misfits gunned down by two Pompey goals in the first 32 minutes from Benjani Mwaruwari and outstanding substitute Niko Kranjcar and still left Dutch striker Dirk Kuyt on the bench all afternoon.