Kenny: Stewart Downing is better than I thought

Kenny Dalglish today reaffirmed his belief that Stewart Downing will play an integral role in Liverpool's quest for success. The England midfielder, who is set to line up for the Reds at Bolton this afternoon, is yet to open his goalscoring account for Liverpool since his move from Aston Villa - but Dalglish insists the money spent to secure his services in the summer will prove to be money well spent. "For me, he's better than I thought he was going to be," said the boss. "He's a better footballer, he's quicker than I thought - he's quicker than Carra thought he was as well! "Stewart is a fantastic footballer, an England international, who made a big move in the summer to come here. "This is a massive club, with all due respect to the others he's been at. It's going to take a little bit of time to get used to his surroundings, which is only natural, but we don't have any change of opinion on him as a player from what it was before. "He's got more crosses in than anyone else, according to the stats. That's part of his job, and the other part is to put them in somewhere where we are going to score goals from them. Our job as a team is to get in there and put them in the back of the net. "He can only do what he does, and that's put some decent crosses into the box, and then we have to get on the end of them." "We've played him in three or four different positions. Maybe we have to look at ourselves and say we have to be fair to him as well. "You have to be patient with every new player who comes in. You have to be patient with the older ones at times as well, like we did with Stevie (Gerrard) coming back. "Patience is important but the most important thing is having the ability to play and everyone in our squad has the ability to play."