BLACKBURN Rovers are unlucky to trail to a Fernando Torres goal at half time in this afternoon's Premier League fixture at Liverpool.

Keith Andrews' penalty had put Rovers back on level terms five minutes before half time, cancelling out Steven Gerrard's 20th-minute opener, but Torres struck just before the interval to make it 2-1.

Chris Samba's header from an El-Hadji Diouf corner forced an early save out of Pepe Reina and Morten Gamst Pedersen brought the Liverpool keeper back into the action with a fierce right-foot volley.

A surging run from Pedersen then set up Nikola Kalinic, who curled just wide as Rovers had the better of the opening exchanges.

But Liverpool went ahead as Yossi Benayoun found Gerrard and the midfielder surged past Samba before clipping the ball over Paul Robinson with his left foot.

Rovers came close to an equaliser when Pedersen met Samba's cross with a stinging volley that Reina had to save before regaining his feet to keep out another decent effort from the Norwegian from the rebound.

But Rovers levelled as Pedersen attempted to play a one-two with Kalinic but Carragher slid in to intercept only to handle the ball as he lay flat on his back in the penalty area. Andrews stepped up and found the bottom left-hand corner.

A minute before half time, though, Liverpool were back in front as Samba initially halted a break from Fernando Torres but the Spaniard scored from close range as seconds afterwards Maxi Rodriguez found him with a low cross.