Reds welcome back Kewell

It's the news all Socceroos and Liverpool fans have been waiting for - Harry Kewell is back on the pitch.

The injury-riddled midfielder has returned to light training for the first time since participating in last year's World Cup finals in Germany.

Such is Kewell's eagerness to return to the Anfield team's line-up, he is hoping to be fully fit in three to four weeks time for Liverpool's crunch Champions League clash away to holders Barcelona on February 21 (February 22 AEDT).

"I hope that I'm about three or four weeks away from being fully fit," the gifted playmaker said.

"I'm under the supervision of the medical team here and the surgeons who operated on me, so once they're all happy with the running then I can start on ball work."

"Once that's going well it's up to the manager when he decides I'm ready."

An up and running, fully-fit Kewell is bound to please under-pressure manager Rafa Benitez, whose side trails league leaders Manchester United by 11 points and was ousted from the FA Cup and League Cup.

Kewell's menacing boot and defence-splitting crosses from the left flank will give Benitez added options as he tries to keep the Merseysiders' season afloat.

But both Benitez and defender Jamie Carragher say they deserve credit for their 2-0 win over injury-hit defending champions Chelsea at Anfield at the weekend.

They reckon too much had been made of Chelsea's fitness worries and not enough of their side's play.

"In Rafa's (Benitez's) first season I can remember us going into big games with Neil Mellor a lone striker. I don't remember too many people making excuses for us," Carragher said.

"When we were losing some games, without Steven Gerrard and Xabi Alonso, people didn't say we had players missing," Benitez added.

"The first season I was here we had players missing, but we said, 'No excuses, let's keep going'."

"We deserve some credit. Don't forget we had Xabi off the field for 10 minutes due to injury during Saturday's win. We must give credit to our players and not talk about the other team."

"I've said all season we have a better squad than before, a better team than before. Now when you see players like Jermaine Pennant playing really, really well and Fabio Aurelio also, you know you have a good team and that we can beat anyone," the Reds' Spanish boss insisted.

"We've got to just focus on winning as many games as we can and keep the pressure on the top two," Carragher added.

"The target now is to catch Chelsea. That's what Saturday's result has done for us. We've given ourselves a chance of doing that, and if we can push ourselves into second, then we can have a look where we are."

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