Support for Litmanen

Liverpool striker is reassured about Anfield future

Gerard Houllier moved yesterday to assure Jari Litmanen that he still has a future at Liverpool, despite the continued absence of the club's highest-paid player from the substitutes' bench, let alone the starting line-up, in the 0-0 draw at Borussia Dortmund.

Litmanen, who arrived on a free transfer from Barcelona in January on a salary reported to be £50,000 a week, had hoped to exchange a place on the Catalan periphery for regular first-team action at Anfield. Instead, the 30-year-old Finland striker has started only two matches this season, but Houllier is adamant his turn will come.

"We may need Jari in the next game," the Liverpool manager said after admitting he planned changes in order to freshen up his side for Tottenham's visit tomorrow. "I fought hard to get him here. I said we needed four strikers. You need at least four; Arsenal and Manchester United have five, Bayern Munich six. If he or anyone else goes, we'll take another one.

"A professional has to have the character to overcome the fact that he will be involved one day and not another. Some players were not involved in Germany, but they understand that we win as a squad, as a unit." The Frenchman, who has also left out Robbie Fowler and Nicky Barmby in the last two matches, points to the fact that Wednesday's Group B game was the first time in 10 matches this season that Liverpool had failed to score as vindication of his persistence with Michael Owen and Emile Heskey. He can hardly be condemned for failing to make changes during games, an unusually high percentage of Liverpool's goals last season having come from substitutes.

According to Houllier, Litmanen offers "something different" from the current duo and Fowler. Not different enough, though, to warrant selection among the seven substitutes in Dortmund, despite it being obvious from the early stages that a single goal would probably be decisive.

Houllier took heart from an overdue clean sheet and from the hosts' inability to muster more than a solitary scoring opportunity. Mattias Sammer's players were so concerned by the pace of Owen and Heskey that they marked them in clusters; so afraid to push out and leave space that Liverpool were not once caught offside.

Unhappily for those who expected a spectacle to rank alongside Liverpool's Uefa Cup final triumph in Dortmund, they also played as if avoiding defeat was their priority. Meanwhile, Boavista's defeat of Dynamo Kiev underlined the importance of the Ukrainians leaving Merseyside similarly vanquished in the first of back-to-back fixtures with Liverpool.

"It's a tight group, so you could even qualify for the second phase with eight points," Houllier argued. "Whatever happens in those two games, it won't be over."