Rafael Benitez remains confident in his team.

By Redsfan
April 13 2005

Though Liverpool will have a depleted team in Turin Rafa Benitez has spoken of his lack of fear against Juventus. He was adamant that his side can again take the game to Juventus.

He said last night;


friend called me from Spain and suggested we play like bats and hang 10 men off the crossbar! But I said no. We are going to Juventus to score," revealed Benitez.
"We are only thinking about winning, nothing else. If we don't think about our problems and concentrate on the solutions it is much better.
"This is a great opportunity for us and to be in the semi-finals would be fantastic. We don't want to think about problems, only about winning. Our job is to come to Turin and win. That is the idea and that means we need to score.
"But we are playing against a very good team and it is important we have the right mentality for this game and not to be afraid of the situation in front of us.

This is only one game against a very good team, but they are a very good team we have already beaten at home.
"If we only think about keeping a clean sheet then there is the danger we could concede near the end."
Liverpool suffered a similar fate at the City of Manchester Stadium on Saturday and a similar reverse would end their Champions League quest in Italy tonight.

But Benitez said:

"Maybe what happened at Manchester City on Saturday can help us. After every game we lose I talk to the players and we analyse what went wrong.
We will think about that experience and with it being so recently I hope we can learn some lessons from it."

A not match fit Xabi Alonso will step in to the place left by Steven Gerrards injury.

“In terms of his ankle he is fine to play, there are no problems." said the Liverpool manager. "He is working very hard but it is very demanding at this level so we have to decide whether to start with him or play him for 45 minutes."

Benitez must also decide whether to recall Jerzy Dudek after three games out with a hamstring strain.

He added: "We have two good options in goal. I need to see how Jerzy is but I won't be saying anything anyway because I don't want Capello to know!"

But Dudek revealed: "I am fit to play. I think experience could count for a lot in an important game like this but Scott has done very well in the last three games.
"Anyone can make mistakes and Scott is a good young goalkeeper."