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• Specialist advises conservative treatment to avoid surgery
• Liverpool striker likely to miss four matches for Liverpool

Fernando Torres faces three weeks on the sidelines after flying to Spain for a second opinion on his troublesome groin problem, according to reports in the Spanish press.

Liverpool’s medical team had told the Spain striker that he needed an operation, similar to the one Steven Gerrard had last season, but Torres, desperate to avoid surgery at any cost, asked to be allowed to seek another medical opinion. The manager Rafael Benítez agreed and the club provided a private jet to take Torres to Valencia yesterday where he consulted a specialist, Dr Ramón Cugat.

Following an examination Dr Cugat prescribed a conservative treatment, based on complete rest for three weeks, which it is hoped will clear up the problem without recourse to the surgeon’s knife.

Torres has returned to Liverpool’s Melwood training ground where the club and player will make the final decision on his treatment but the Spanish press has already ruled him out of Spain’s friendlies against Argentina on 14 November and Austria on 18 November. He is likely to miss four matches for Liverpool: three in the Premier League and the crucial Champions League encounter away to Debrecen on 24 November.

Fernando TorresLiverpoolSpainChris Taylorguardian.co.uk

• Striker back at Melwood after visiting Valencia doctor
• Gerrard not yet ruled out of Birmingham encounter

Fernando Torres returned to Liverpool’s Melwood training complex today after a whistle-stop trip to Valencia for a second opinion on his groin injury.

The striker visited a Liverpool hospital yesterday for further tests after flying back to Merseyside with the rest of the squad following the 1-1 Champions League draw with Lyon.

Torres then visited a Spanish specialist who has worked with him before and is also favoured by the Liverpool manager Rafael Benítez from his time at Valencia.

It is now expected the 25-year-old will do light training over the weekend and is still in contention to play against Birmingham on Monday.

Torres is believed to be against having an operation on the problem, which is not a full hernia but a deeper groin injury affecting his adductor muscle.

He is also thought to want to play for Spain against Argentina next Saturday at his former home ground, the Vicente Calderón stadium of Atlético Madrid.

Exactly how Liverpool will feel about that is unclear but only a serious breakdown in Torres’s fitness will make it possible for them to stop him travelling to join the Spain squad.

Steven Gerrard, who also has a groin problem, has undergone light training this week and has not yet been ruled out of the Birmingham game.

Fernando TorresLiverpoolPremier Leagueguardian.co.uk

Rafael Benítez must demonstrate that he really is producing a brighter and better Liverpool

If goals are the lifeblood of football it is anaemia that leaves Liverpool looking as if they are about to pass out. Following that 1-1 draw in Lyon, they will probably be carted away from the tournament. The misery of the last minute equaliser from Lisandro López does tend to distract attention from the punchlessness of Rafael Benítez’s side.

This was not an affliction that had suddenly struck them down at Stade Gerland. After six hours of football in Group E the team has scored three goals. Only Atlético Madrid, Apoel Nicosia, Besiktas and Maccabi Haifa have been more sterile. Allowances must be made for a relative lack of means at sides in Cyprus and Israel. Liverpool’s case is in a different category.

The team were forthright at Stade Gerland and would have been praised lavishly if they had not conceded that goal. There is an immediate temptation to blame defenders for buckling. A little sympathy can be extended to Emiliano Insua for rushing towards Michel Bastos without getting close enough to stop the attacker from glancing the ball into the space he had just vacated.

Any 20-year-old left-back could have made that misjudgement, but he should have enjoyed better cover from the experienced Sotirios Kyrgiakos, whose weakness left Lisandro to score single‑mindedly. The incident will dominate everyone’s memory because of its lateness and the immediate damage inflicted on the visitors. Nonetheless, the side had opportunities to win both matches with the Lyon side.

Benítez is hobbled by injuries to influential players, but he is also in an intermediate period. While he wants a more adventurous line-up, and should be congratulated on that, that flowering is still to come and, in the meantime, the old resilience has been diminished. Liverpool have had a single clean sheet in their past nine games. Crucially, the attackers can find it hard to compensate for those deficiencies.

Ryan Babel’s 30-yarder against Lyon was rousing, but it was not all that consoling in a wider perspective. Liverpool have needed to hit the net more often in their Champions League games and cannot count on doing so in that euphoric manner. Where Andriy Voronin is concerned, pessimism is so entrenched that fans would have been surprised if he had finished authoritatively when he went clear against Lyon.

He stayed true to his Liverpool reputation by bashing his shot against the advancing goalkeeper Hugo Lloris. In his loan spell with Hertha Berlin last season, he averaged fractionally better than a goal to every two Bundesliga outings. Voronin looks unable to withstand the disabling pressure at Liverpool. The result of all that is a dependence on Fernando Torres that now reeks of desperation. He had a wasteful moment in front of the Lyon posts that his side could not afford.

Prior to the match, Benítez verged on the reassuring when he said of the attacker, “He is playing sometimes with pain but it’s less pain every time.” Following the match, the observations about the effects of Torres’ hernia were more disturbing: “He was inconsistent with his running, in that he had to keep stopping and then starting again.” Many will suspect that Torres should not have been on the pitch.

There is a disquiet over Benítez’s previous dealings in strikers. Fernando Morientes, Peter Crouch, Craig Bellamy and Robbie Keane come to mind among those who were bought but never assimilated. Babel, regarded as a forward when he arrived, has faltered.

An exercise in retraining was called for in the case of Dirk Kuyt, who became