Former Liverpool defender Steve Nicol believes that Stewart Downing is not good enough to play for the club.

The winger has struggled to impress since his £20m move from Aston Villa in 2011 but starred in the Reds' 4-0 win over Fulham on Saturday.

Downing netted the third against the Cottagers, but Nicol is still not convinced by the 28-year-old.

"Sometimes some players are just not capable of playing at the top level," Nicol told talkSPORT. "As much as I've given him praise over the last couple of weeks, maybe he's not up to it.

"Brendan Rodgers was one minute saying he's going to move on, the next thing is that he wans him to stay. Stewart has to step up and play consistently until the end of the season, if he does that then we'll see.

"He's been caught in the hole, Liverpool are looking at using three attacking players and Downing's an old-fashioned left-sided midfield player. He seems to get caught in the middle, he doesn't know how deep or long he should be and he's lacking confidence."

Liverpool travel to Stoke City in their next match on Boxing Day.