'It has become apparent that Diego Forlan is not the answer - although I truly hope the lad proves me wrong by going on to have a long and fruitful career with the Reds.
‘The player still has the valid defence that the number of starts he has made, as opposed to the number of appearances, is still quite low.
‘Until he has had a reasonable run of starts, say eight to 10 games on the trot, any criticism has to be a little guarded.
‘But, from what we have seen, he simply does not look to be up to the job. And nothing he has done would justify him being given such a steady run in the team.
‘I presume he is impressing the manager in training, which is something the fans and I don't see.
‘You could also see from the reactions to his penalty goal at home to Olympiakos that he is a popular lad with the other players.
‘And he is having no problems finding the net for the reserves - four goals in one game recently. But that is a long way from the grind of the Premiership and the glory of European nights, and we are talking about an international player - if he wasn't able to cope with reserve football we really would be in trouble.'