Players Under The Microscope / Ralph Ellis / 30 July 2008 /

Ralph Ellis is confounded by Robbie Keane's doubters. The Irishman's stats are consistently strong, and if he continues in the same vein at his new club this could be the year when Liverpool finally mount a serious title challenge.

Betting on Liverpool to win the Premier League title is a bit like backing Spain at a major championships. You look at the team on paper, think how strong it is, and then they always let you down. Except, hang on a minute, didn't the Spaniards finally come up trumps this summer? (just when I'd decided it wasn't worth backing them any more!) And isn't their star striker also the centre forward at Anfield?

So maybe this could be the season when a dabble on Liverpool at the very generous Betfair price of [8.6] could finally pay some dividends. Certainly that's what Robbie Keane reckons after completing his £19million move yesterday. Then again, as he freely admits, he is a Reds fan, and plenty of Merseyside bookies have got rich down the years cashing in on the blind loyalty of the faithful.

Keane did his welcome press conference yesterday and all five tabloids have back page pictures of Keane and Fernando Torres holding hands and having fun in training. If Rafa Benitez is finally to end the wait for a championship trophy at Anfield which now stretches back to 1990, then the success of these two will be vital.

Keane is talking like the boyhood fan he once was. "Now I've fulfilled my dream of joining the club I believe we can seriously challenge for the title," he says. "My older brothers and the rest of the family are mad keen Liverpool fans and always talk about the great days of the past. I hope I can be part of the team who finally win the League again. Liverpool have to challenge for the title. The fans expect it."

Keane is expected to play in tonight's prestige friendly against Villareal in Spain, although Torres is not expected to be involved for more than a short amount of time. The new signing is [2.52] to score on his debut, and currently [8.0] to lay. If you can get a bet matched at about [4.0] it could be well worth a gamble. In the longer term the injection of the Republic of Ireland star's workrate and goal-threat should be great news for Torres.

The Spaniard has, remarkably, drifted in the betting to be top Premier League goalscorer over the last few weeks and is currently on offer at [6.0]. That's worth snapping up - especially with Cristiano Ronaldo [11.5] likely to miss the first month or more of the campaign. Torres proved last season when he got 24 goals in 33 matches of his first English campaign that he's pure quality as a finisher. He proved it again in Euro 2008, and the extra space which will be created by defences having to worry about Keane's finishing as well can only benefit him.

It's amazing that some critics, amongst them former Liverpool player Ray Houghton, have dismissed Keane as a second rate signing. Take a look at his goals record - he got 15 in just 36 League games for a struggling Tottenham side last year, and in many of those matches he didn't play the full 90 minutes because of Martin Jol's peculiar rotation of him with Jermaine Defoe.

The Sun has an interesting statistics panel, setting out the goals and games (and chance conversion percentage) of the big four's striking partnerships plus Defoe and Peter Crouch at Portsmouth. Torres and Keane convert 22.5% of chances into goals, while none of the others get above 19.1%.

Five things you might not know about Robbie Keane:

1. His first team were South Dublin schoolboy side Crumlin United.

2. This is the second time he's had the chance to join Liverpool. As a boy he rejected his favourites because he thought he'd have more chance of first team football at Wolves.

3. His wife Claudine - they married in June, but have been together for years - is a former Miss Ireland contestant

4. His 15 goals last season made him the first Tottenham player ever to get double figures for League goals in six consecutive seasons.

5. His current international record reads 33 goals in 81 caps - but aged just 28 he's on target to beat Steve Staunton's record of 102 caps for the Republic.

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