IN a week when Matthew Le Tissier's return to the international fold suggested that every discard of genuine class will always find himself pushing at an open door, no one saw fit to mention the name of Stan Collymore.

The one time self publicist with the knack of rubbing up the wrong way even the most timid of souls, will spend the coming weekend pondering an uncertain future while his country's World Cup campaign opens in Moldova.

So whatever happened to poor old Stan? Twelve months ago Collymore was British football's most expensive player at £8.5 million. He was flashy, overbearingly confident and not averse to verbally punching the nose of a largely unsympathetic public.

He did not play particularly well last season but that, we were all assured, was nothing more than a curable case of small pond to big pool syndrome.

"Give him time" pleaded the apologists as they marched through Anfield's corridors of power defending Collymore's performances on the pitch and his ill judged sentiments off it.

Unfortunately for Collymore, time is modern football's most precious commodity and, with the new season still some way short of puberty, it is fast running out. He did well to bluff his way through to the 61st minute before the first audible cry of "get him off" rolled down the main stand.

The truth is that, if Liverpool possessed a third front line striker, Collymore would probably have been back in the dressing room, if not on the bench, long before his side's efforts to overcome mediocre opposition veered towards the embarrassing.

Collymore was awful but, with the possible exception of Mark Wright, so too were all the men in red.

"I can't really remember Liverpool having a clear cut chance," mused Sunderland's manager Peter Reid.

Indeed, the better openings fell to Reid's team but Niall Quinn took the edge off an otherwise proficient personal performance by squandering two simple chances.

"I don't want to get technical because I'm crap at it but we have come through our first three games without looking out of our depth," added Reid.

If only Collymore could make such a claim.