Aquilani seals win with a kiss

ALBERTO AQUILANI today revealed his delight at fulfilling a long-standing ambition - then promised to make his outstanding display against Portsmouth the norm.

The Italian midfielder crowned a man-of-the-match display against the Premier League's basement side by scoring the third goal in a resounding 4-1 victory at Anfield.

Aquilani's goal came in front of The Kop and the strike was extra special for him, as it was something he had wanted to do since he arrived at the club last August.

He dedicated the goal to his girlfriend, Michaela, - Aquilani kissed a tattoo of her name on his wrist as he wheeled away - and headed for him in home spirits.

But as pleased as he was with his efforts, Aquilani - who also created Fernando Torres' second goal with a sublime pass - is determined to make sure he reproduces them on a regular basis.

"When I arrived, I looked at The Kop and said that I wanted to score in front of it; now I have done that and I am very happy," said Aquilani, whose season has been decimated by a succession of fitness problems.

"But above all, the big thing was that we played well and won.

"We have to take things step by step now. We can only think about Sunday after Thursday.

"Can I do better? Everyone can do better. Fernando made things easy.

"He is a special player, you easily play with him and Stevie."

Liverpool moved back into fifth place, a point behind Tottenham, courtesy of their biggest win since thrashing Hull City on September 26 and the performance augurs well for the remainder of the campaign.

The next Premier League assignment is at Old Trafford at the weekend but Aquilani is not allowing his thoughts to drift any further ahead than Thursday night and helping Liverpool overturn a 1-0 first leg deficit against Lille.

"I have waited a lot of time but I am very happy because we won the game," said Aquilani.

"We need to win a lot of games to get into the top four and this is the first.

"It has been a difficult season for me because I have had a lot of injuries but now I fee fit and am right to play.

"I had chance against Portsmouth and I had to take it.

"Most of all, I am happy because we won.

"We won 4-1 and it was a really good performance; one that we really needed."

Pepe Reina, meanwhile, believes the Reds can take momentum from this triumph into their Europa League showdown with the French side on Thursday night; he thinks they will have outstanding chance of reaching the last eight if they reproduce this effort.

"We knew that it was a must-win game," said Reina. "Fortunately we did it and performed really well. Hopefully we can do it again on Thursday.

"When the team is playing well, we can score at any time. For this 10 minutes, we were incredible."

This story has been reproduced from today's media. It does not necessarily represent the position of Liverpool Football Club.