Riera & Johnson speak out as Torres is sidelined

It's good to talk, and Liverpool's players, both past and present, have been talking about the club's current predicament. With an 11-day break until their next fixture against Manchester City at Anfield, defender Glen Johnson and winger Albert Riera have opened their hearts to the newspapers.

Johnson, an £18m summer capture from Portsmouth, has dubbed the recent nine-game streak that has seen just one victory embarrassing. "If someone had told you at the start of the season that we'd win one in nine, you'd have laughed your head off," said Johnson, who was man of the match in Monday night's 2-2 draw with Birmingham.

But the 25-year-old backed his boss to the hilt, saying: "Rafa's done a fantastic job here and will continue to do so. A couple of bad results does not make him a bad manager or us a bad squad. To say that his job is on the line is ridiculous. Nobody expects Liverpool to lose games one after another. But that's the nature of playing for a huge club. The spotlight is on you all the time."

His colleague Riera, who has been plagued by injuries that returned against Birmingham when he was substituted just before half time with a hamstring problem, said the club was currently being "untidy".

"We need everybody not just on the pitch but off it, too, helping each other to be stronger because now our problem could be mental, because we - and I don't like saying this - are untidy," the Daily Mirror reported the midfielder as saying. "I don't like to use this word but it's true we are not used to being in this position. Against Birmingham you could see we were trying to do everything.

"We were playing wide, between the lines, always going forward, defending with two centre-backs only, full-backs going forward, and we were trying to do all we could to win the game, but the other team scored with one free-kick and one shot from a long way out. It's really unlucky because we had a lot of opportunities to kill the game before as well."

Meanwhile Anfield great Mark Lawrenson, now a pundit on Match of the Day, wrote in the Mirror that Benitez was "taking his turn to have a nightmare season", following Arsene Wenger's wobble last year. But the former defender says that Liverpool won't "make any snap, rash decisions. Anyone who suggests they will simply doesn’t know the whole fabric of the club. That even extends to the Liverpool fans who are patient and are being understanding through a very difficult time for Benitez."

While he feels Benitez would get sacked if he doesn't take the club into the Champions League positions at the end of the season, Lawrenson doesn't think this will happen. "Don't get me wrong, if the club doesn't make the Champions League then that probably will be the end of Rafa. But they will make it. When they get Fernando Torres, Steven Gerrard and even Alberto Aquilani fully fit and firing then Liverpool will be a totally different prospect."

However Lawrenson does call into question the decision to buy Johnson in the close season: "He has been outstanding, [and] was exceptional against Birmingham. However, Benitez spent £18m on a right back when he needed another striker to either support or provide back-up for Torres. People say you can't sign strikers who are just cover or back-up. Well, the other clubs manage it!"

And it's back-up that is urgently needed, as the Liverpool manager announced that Fernando Torres won't play for some time as he seeks to repair his groin problem without surgery. “We are talking of two or three weeks out now for Fernando,” Benitez said. ·