Rafael Benitez praised Fernando Torres after his hat-trick beat Middlesbrough 3-2 and sent Liverpool back to fourth in the Premier League.Torres has become the first Liverpool forward for five years to reach the 20-goal mark in a season, and his treble ended Middlesbrough's brave resistance.

Tuncay Sanli headed Boro ahead early on and Stewart Downing got their second after 83 minutes, but in between Torres struck three times to clinch victory.

The Liverpool boss was more than pleased with the Spain striker's contribution, saying: "It is not easy for a foreign player to come into the English league and settle straight away.

"But he has done that so well. He has power and pace, he can kill defenders with his pace.

"He has proved to be a great signing. Last summer we had 10 names we were considering, then it was down to three. But we went for Fernando because he was hungry and had the style to handle the Premier League.

"It is difficult to score 20 goals for anyone in a season, but he has done that well before the end of the campaign. Everything is possible now for him as he progresses in the game here."

Middlesbrough boss Gareth Southgate rued the red card shown to Jeremie Aliadiere after an incident with Javier Mascherano.

Referee Lee Mason revealed the sending-off was because the player raised his hands at an opponent, and not for spitting as was first thought.

Southgate said: "That is a lesson for Jeremie. He is young and will learn from that.

"He hardly floored the opponent but you have to accept in the modern game that if you do something like that, and it is in front of a young referee, you will be sent off.

"The biggest punishment for him will be missing three games and knowing we now have plenty of competition for forward positions."

Southgate added: "We feel we have given Liverpool a hell of a game and we did enough, we felt, to have taken something from the match.

"But the sending-off came when we looked to have turned the tide with our second goal. An equaliser after that was always unlikely.

"But there were spells in the game when Liverpool were edgy and we should have been able to take advantage of that.

"But we have several young players who are very down because they felt they had done well. We leave here, though, with plenty of positives."

More Football News from TEAMtalk