Jay Spearing says he's fighting every day to establish himself at Liverpool.

The Scouse midfielder accepts he cannot afford to rest on his laurels.

"Kenny has given me a lot of confidence and has shown the faith that young local lads like me need to get a chance," he told LFC magazine. "But half of it has to do with myself as well; the effort I put in day in, day out.

"There's a lot of stuff in training that not a lot of people see.

"It's the way I've been brought up because you don't get much from life without hard work.

"My dad said to me that I had to take each day as it comes and prove every single day that I was better than the last one.

"The only way that I was going to get games was by working harder than anybody else in training; not necessarily show that I was better than anybody else but prove that I could compete and not be overawed - to show them I'm up for the fight."