Top sport stories from the national newspapers:

THE SUN: Rafa Benitez will gamble on Steven Gerrard in tonight’s Stamford Bridge Champions League shootout. Also: Ricardo Carvalho has warned Liverpool: We won’t bottle it tonight.

MIRROR: Pepe Reina claims Liverpool can pull off the “impossible job” at Stamford Bridge tonight. Also: Sunderland are ready to ask Alan Curbishley to become their emergency new manager – once he settles his dispute with West Ham this week.

DAILY STAR: Fernando Torres wants Liverpool to produce a spectacular Champions League recovery in memory of the 96 fans who died at Hillsborough. Also: Ricardo Carvalho is adamant Chelsea are a stronger team after a rocky season and will prove that by winning the Champions League.

DAILY MAIL: Guus Hiddink has admitted that Chelsea’s defensive frailties could stop them storming into the Champions League semi-finals. Also: Jenson Button is poised to claim his third straight win of the Formula One season – a crucial courtroom victory over the controversial design of his Brawn GP car.

DAILY EXPRESS: Rafa Benitez will draw on the still incredible memory of Liverpool’s finest hour – their 2005 Champions League final triumph – to inspire another European Great Escape against Chelsea tonight. Also: Luton manager Mick Harford last night slammed the regime that cost the club a 30-point deduction as the Hatters were relegated from the Football League following a goalless draw against Chesterfield yesterday.

THE TIMES: Rafael Benitez believes it could be Liverpool’s destiny to pull off an extraordinary Champions League comeback against Chelsea in the week the club commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster. Also: With Guus Hiddink, the devil is in the detail.

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Rafael Benitez believes Liverpool can be inspired by the emotion associated with the anniversary of the Hillsborough tragedy to produce a performance against Chelsea tonight that would rank alongside the “Miracle of Istanbul” as one of the club’s greatest comebacks. Also: If there is any appointment in football that is usually guaranteed to spell disaster, it is that of the temporary manager.

THE GUARDIAN: Rafael Benitez is prepared to take a calculated risk on Steven Gerrard’s fitness at Chelsea tonight and believes another Champions League miracle is not beyond a Liverpool team with “nothing to lose” in their ominous task at Stamford Bridge. Also: Khaldoon Al Mubarak, the chairman of Manchester City, is to fly to England to watch the second leg of their UEFA Cup quarter-final against Hamburg on Thursday and assess whether Mark Hughes still has the backing of the club’s supporters.

THE INDEPENDENT: It will take an effort of near Istanbul proportions to see them through, but Liverpool, aware that Chelsea consider their job already “nearly done”, will go into tonight’s Champions League quarter-final second leg liberated by the feeling they have nothing to lose. Also: For most of Chelsea’s former managers, the sight of Roman Abramovich sitting by the edge of the pitch watching training was enough to spook them into yelling instructions at the players as they ran around trying to look the part.