Group A Liverpool v Udinese:IF THERE are reservations about Fabio Borini's start at Liverpool they are not shared by the Italy striker or Brendan Rodgers, who paid €14m on the 21-year-old. The forward has one goal in nine games for Liverpool and will seek to improve that return against Udinese at Anfield tonight.

“It’s just a matter of time for me,” Borini said. “The same thing happened last season. I scored one goal before October, then got injured for three months and after that I scored my second goal in January. From January until March I scored eight goals. In Swansea I scored six goals from March until May. The goals do come.”

The emergence of Raheem Sterling, Suso and Andre Wisdom has made it easy to forget Borini is also in the early stages of a career that has had the disruption of playing for Swansea, Parma, Roma and now Liverpool in the past 18 months. Rodgers worked with Borini at Chelsea and Swansea before spending 40 per cent of his allocated transfer budget on the striker this summer.

“Fabio probably hasn’t scored as many goals as he would have wanted to but, in fairness, I have been playing him in his number two position,” Rodgers said. “He is better through the middle.”

Rodgers will ring the changes for the Europa League but has the insurance of Luis Suarez and Steven Gerrard in the squad.

Guardian Service