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We haven't done one of these top five threads for a while and, what with it being Friday, I thought I'd dust one off and bring it out to play. The two to work on are: Top Five Attractive Animated Characters: 5. The Caramel Bunny 4. Oren Ishi 3. Snow White 2. April O'Neill 1. Jessica Rabbit Top Five Moustaches: 5. The dude from The Eagles of death metal 4. Sam Elliott (Golden Compass - Big Lebowski) 3. Selleck 2. Dali 1. Mercury Enjoy.

March 12, 2008 European master Benitez puts an added notch on bulletproof beltCommentary: Oliver Kay Should he tire of wondering who will sign his next pay cheque – or, more pertinently, his next Spanish superstar or South American teenager – Rafael BenÍtez will never be short of offers from Italy. A coach does not claim the scalps of Juventus, AC Milan and Inter Milan in the Champions League without attracting covetous glances from the smoke-filled boardrooms of Serie A, and the Liverpool manager is said to be well aware of this as life on Merseyside becomes more complicated by the day. On the eve of this critical Champions League tie, it was put to BenÍtez that “you don’t need this”, “this” being the very public power struggle being played out between Tom Hicks, Liverpool’s co-chairman, and Dubai International Capital (DIC), the would-be owners. In one sense he does not need it. But those close to him suggest that he does; that the Liverpool job, once regarded as a natural stepping stone to Real Madrid, has consumed him. BenÍtez has sailed remarkably close to the wind, entering a dangerous political game that almost cost him his job in November and may yet in the long term, but it is on nights such as this, faced with a tactical conundrum against high-class European opponents, that he has built his reputation, not only among Liverpool supporters but throughout Europe. He might struggle on the domestic front, but more than a few clubs – even Inter, on course for a third successive league title in Serie A but without a European Cup since 1965 – would settle for that in exchange for the kind of Champions League success BenÍtez has enjoyed. This was not your typical BenÍtez tactical masterclass in Europe; it was too frenzied, too open, for that. But, with a 2-0 lead from the first leg, BenÍtez had decided not to play into Inter’s hands by sitting back and trying to soak up pressure. He picked a team equipped to counter-attack, which they did to such devastating effect in the 64th minute, when Fernando Torres – a forward whom Sir Alex Ferguson, after much consideration, deciding against battling Liverpool for last summer – scored yet another truly wonderful goal to add to his collection. Hicks might like to take some of the credit for that, having sanctioned the club-record £20.5 million deal that brought Torres from Atlético Madrid, but Liverpool’s success in the Champions League this season has come in spite of the club’s American owners, not because of them. After a couple of iffy results and an untimely BenÍtez tantrum during the group stage in the autumn, Hicks and George Gillett Jr tried and failed to hire Jürgen Klinsmann as their new manager. As unstable as the club have been from top to bottom this season, that was, and remains, truly astonishing. That development, more than anything, turned Liverpool’s supporters against their American owners and had many of them praying for a takeover by DIC. Contrary to Hicks’s statements, DIC remains confident that will happen at some stage. More upheaval is ahead at Anfield, but much more of this and BenÍtez will be bulletproof.