[lfc-news] Benitez: Riise has striking future - Echo

Liverpool Echo, 4 Jan 2005
Benitez: Riise has striking future
By Chris Bascombe, Liverpool Echo

RAFA Benitez believes John Arne Riise's long-term future may be as a goalscoring midfielder following his latest crucial strike for Liverpool.

Riise was the matchwinner at Norwich with his third goal over the festive period.

And Benitez revealed he'd urged the Norwegian to improve his strike tally after watching his goalscoring exploits on videos of Liverpool's games of the last two years.

"When I came to Liverpool I watched the videos and read the statistics and saw how Riise scored seven goals in a season by playing as a winger" said Benitez..

"He's strong and powerful and I couldn't see why he didn't score even more goals.

"I told him to hit the target more and try, try, try for more goals. Now he's improving all the time and starting to score more goals. I think he can go and score even more."

Liverpool scrapped their way to a 2-1 win despite a below par performance.

Benitez thinks it was understandable given their workload over Christmas.

"It was difficult in the first half. We played Chelsea in a high tempo game, so it wasn't easy to play again in 48 hours," he said..

"It's true we didn't play well in the first half, but it was better in the second.

"We scored two goals and only at the end of the match did we have a problem.

"It was nervous in the last ten minutes and that's why it's important to keep the ball.

"What's important is we are winning away now and we're nearer the top four. I'm sure we will improve even more. All that matters when you read the papers today is we won and are higher up the table."

Liverpool will now try to finally complete deals for Fernando Morientes, Mauricio Pellegrino and Scott Carson this week.

Benitez is confident reinforcements will arrive soon.

He said: "We have two or three days to work on bringing in new players. We need more experience and more players for different positions.

"We have names and I want to sign good professionals and the best players for us. We are closer, but only when they're signed can I say more.