Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez has refused to buckle to pressure and will not rush expensive summer signing Alberto Aquilani into action.
The Italy international has played less than 30 minutes of first-team action since arriving at Anfield in a £17million deal from AS Roma during the summer.
Aquilani's ankle injury has been treated in cautious fashion by Benitez and the Reds boss has no plans to throw him into the fray despite pressure from fans to see the player signed as a replacement for Xabi Alonso.
Fans' favourite Alonso was sold to Real Madrid in August.
"It's more simple than people think," Benitez told the Liverpool Echo."He has been out for longer than we expected and because he has been injured during the summer, he couldn't train properly.
"Now it is much better and it is a case of improving his match fitness. We want to play him and we thought we might have been able to do that with the reserves at Wigan.
"That was called off (last week) but we had some games at Melwood and he played 45 minutes against our reserves last week.
"We are trying to improve him as quick as we can. But when you have a player who is not fit, he is always going to need time to settle in to a game.
"We want to protect the player but, at the same time, we want to keep winning games.
"He understands that he needs to be a little bit fitter before he can play."
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