Kevin Keegan believes the blossoming partnership between Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard has the "wow" factor that will terrorise English football for years to come.

Newcastle boss Kevin Keegan, still a legend at Anfield, reckons their blossoming double-act can only get better.

Keegan forged a pretty impressive partnership back in the Bill Shankly-era alongside John Toshack, but he concedes that Torres and Gerrard are something extra-special.

The pair created a goal for each other - with Jermaine Pennant being credited with a fluke he knew little about - as Liverpool made it five wins on the trot, as they head for the San Siro in confident mood for Tuesday's Champions League crunch with Inter Milan.

Gerrard and Torres have now scored 44 goals between them this season and a remarkable nine in their last five games together.

It is form that has taken Liverpool convincingly back into the top four and started to wipe away the memory of a fragile, tension-packed campaign.

Torres has now hit 25 in 34 games, and says of his emerging partnership with Liverpool's skipper: "When you play alongside a player like Stevie, and with Ryan (Babel) and Jermaine (Pennant) on the wings, it is easy to score like I have been. They are brilliant and make my job easy.

"I am very comfortable with the partnership I have with Stevie and he is comfortable with me. We now must play like this for a long time together.

"We know where each other is running, where we are. I score, Stevie scores, and the team is winning. That is the most important thing.

"We both do our jobs and the team is winning. That is all we are trying to do."

Keegan, despite his own side's desperate form, could only be impressed with the Gerrard-Torres combination.

He said: "You are only seeing the start of it at the moment, but what you are seeing if you are Rafa Benitez or a Liverpool fan is something that makes you go 'Wow.'

"It's not what it is now but what it could be in the future that must frighten teams.

"Liverpool have the players who can really hurt you and, in Gerrard and Torres, they certainly had that. They are building a good partnership, realising the strengths of each other, and they are exploiting that on the pitch.

"But you must put it into perspective. If you are spending over £20m for a striker then you would expect him to be good, top class. It's not a gamble. Not like when Liverpool bought me from Scunthorpe for £33,000, that's a gamble.

"But they have spent £20m, and Torres has been playing at this level for a few years in Spain and for their national side. It is not a surprise. He is a very good player. But the partnership with Gerrard is a combination that can only get better."

Gerrard's 19th goal of the campaign, Liverpool's third early in the second-half, allowed boss Benitez to withdraw his two golden boys to rest them ahead of the trip to Italy.

And Torres views that test with relish after four successive league victories, adding: "Now we can look to the Inter Milan game with confidence, it is a very important game for us, and we must keep this form going.

"We are confident of progressing in the competition in the San Siro. We had an excellent victory against Inter at Anfield, and we know if we score one goal in Milan it makes it very difficult for them, already 2-0 behind.

"They are one of the best teams in Europe at the moment, but we are confident.

"We expect to play deep and try for the counter-attack, and although we know Inter are a good team the first goal is very important.

"If we score first it will be difficult for them to score four times."

Benitez, not surprisingly, wanted to wrap Torres and Gerrard in cotton wool once Newcastle had been put to the sword.

He said: "The understanding between Torres and Gerrard is really good, the goals they contrived together killed the game.

"If teams give them space and time, when they have to attack themselves, they can be very dangerous. If a team is losing they have to come out and attack, and that is when the pair of them be really kill the defenders.

"They are clever players, their movement is good and they have such quality. They seem to understand where each other is and where they will run, defenders cannot stop them.

"They have such confidence now, they believe they will score in every game. And when the rest of the team is also playing well, that is very positive.

"It is important not to concede an early goal in Milan, but we will obviously try to score as the key to progress is to score one ourselves."

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