FOR John Flanagan, it was a matter of days. For Jack Robinson, less than 90 minutes. But widespread appreciation of Jay Spearing’s emergence has taken a lot longer.

It was back during the closing moments of a Champions League dead rubber at PSV Eindhoven in December 2008 that Spearing made his Liverpool debut.

A cameo in the 4-0 win over Real Madrid followed a few months later, but the breakthrough the next campaign failed to happen with Spearing ending the season gaining experience at promotion-chasing Championship side Leicester City.

Perseverance, though, has paid off for the 22-year-old. And having previously impressed in the Europa League, Spearing has made the step from fringe player to first-team squad regular as shown by his brace of performances against Manchester City and Arsenal.

“Jay’s always been a good passer but maybe now he’s got a bit more confidence and belief in himself, and he’s encouraged more to do it,” says Kenny Dalglish.

“The games he’s had and the performances he’s put in, that will give him confidence. It has helped him.

“But he still is snapping around people’s ankles and we wouldn’t want to take that away from him.

“Jay’s been fantastic in the games he’s played for us, and that’s a great lift for everyone at the club – to see someone like that coming through.

“Jonjo Shelvey was doing really well as well until he got injured, but now he’s coming back in. Danny Wilson is the same and Martin Kelly too. They’ve all been really good for us this year.

“But Jay has been the one who’s done as much as anyone.”

Spearing didn’t start a league game under Roy Hodgson, but has started the last four Premier League matches in the absence of injured captain Steven Gerrard.

And Dalglish adds: “Any team in the world would be a better team with Steven Gerrard playing in midfield and we’re no different.

“You feel for players when they’re injured but when they are injured someone else steps up to the plate. It’s to their credit that they’ve all stepped up to the plate. Not just Jay, all of them.

“We’ve got a few injuries and it’s how we react to that that’s most important to us. And they’ve done fantastically well in adversity.

“When you consider what happened on Sunday: we start without our captain, we lose our captain, we lose Andy up front, we lose Fabio. Then we’ve got 17 and 18-year-olds at full-back against English, French and Russian internationals, and it didn’t faze them. They got on with it, accepted their lot and did the club proud.”

Spearing is expected to retain his central midfield place when bogey side Birmingham City visit Anfield tomorrow.

However, his man-of-the-match performance at the Emirates last Sunday has been in danger of being overshadowed by the hype surrounding young duo Flanagan and Robinson.