Rafa confirms Gerrard was rested

After the surprise omissions in the team Rafa, whose selections were fully vindicated, stressed the importance of using the squad system:

"We tried to protect Steven, there were a few players in the same condition. I felt we needed fresh legs for a very difficult match.
"Some people were tired, including Steven, and we needed to rest players for this match."
Benitez also left Steve Finnan, Stephen Warnock and Djibril Cisse on the bench, all of whom had been involved in international squads of late.
"We must use all of our squad to compete in the very top competitions,"

I'm sure Rafa also had the Manu game in mind when the team was selected.
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