Liverpool midfielder Jay Spearing is full of praise for senior teammate Alberto Aquilani.

Aquilani is being phased into first-team action by Rafa Benitez, but his performances during cameo appearances and training have impressed Spearing.

"You can tell he's a world class player," said Spearing in this week's LFC Weekly magazine. "For him, I think it's just a matter of fitness and sharpness really.

"He's doing more and more each day in training and you can see that he's very clever with some of the passes that he plays. Hopefully he can bring that out into our first team.

"The boss has given him 15 minutes here and 15 minutes there and I think that will do him good just to try and get used to the pace of the Premier League, because it will be completely different than in Italy."