Torres screamer~gives Reds late win

The striker, scorer of the winning goal in this year’s European Championships final, was anonymous for much of the evening as his partnership with £20m new boy Robbie Keane continued to stutter, but he produced a vicious 20-yard drive eight minutes from time to claim the points.

It was a bitter pill to swallow for a Sunderland side who had enjoyed the best of the play and all but negated the return of the Reds’ fit-again skipper Steven Gerrard.

Torres and Keane displayed only glimpses of a blossoming partnership, but there is clearly work to do, a fact demonstrated in the second half when Keane and Torres got in the way of one another with the goal gaping following Craig Gordon’s parried save.