Liverpool are half-an-hour into their home game with Fulham – with Fernando Torres nowhere to be seen. Torres was left out of the 18-man squad by Rafa Benitez, with the official line being that the striker was kept out through injury.

With no more detail than that right now, we can presume that the culprit is a knee injury. That appears to be confirmed by several non-official sources.

Torres was seen applying an ice pack to his knee after being substituted at Birmingham last weekend and on several occasions against Benfica on Thursday, the Spaniard was seen gingerly stretching and feeling the same area. Torres was believed to be receiving treatment on the knee following Thursday’s game.

Today’s absence was still a major surprise. Rafa gave no word leading up to the game that he had any major concern regarding the injury but it appears that, when tested, Torres and his knee were not 100%. We can only speculate whether he would have been risked had Liverpool not progressed to the Europa League semi-finals.

It’s pretty disastrous news for Fantasy Managers – particularly those Fantasy Premier League bosses who handed Torres the armband. They will now be nervously checking their auto-captain criteria and no doubt looking out for the Chelsea team-sheet against Bolton in the week as a result. The question we have to ask ourselves now is whether Torres is a liability for the remainder of the season if this knee problem is going to continue to trouble him and Rafa continues to keep us in the dark.

We can only await Rafa’s post-match comments.