Liverpool manager Roy Hodgson has revealed he isn't surprised by David Ngog's scoring spree as he tried to bring the striker to Fulham.
Ngog, 21, has been in blistering form for the Reds and has scored four goals in three first team appearances this term. The France youth international struggled to make an impact last term and had looked to be on his way out under then manager Rafael Benitez.
Speaking to the club's official website, Hodgson admitted he had expected Ngog to shine and had made the centre forward a loan target in the New Year while in charge at Craven Cottage.
He said: "I wouldn't say he has surprised me. He is performing pretty much in the way I thought he could and should perform.
"In terms of judgement of front players, there's often a dual judgement - the judgement of the coach and the players who appreciate what he's doing, but if he's not scoring goals that won't be appreciated by other people such as fans and the mass media.
"I tried to loan him when I was at Fulham, but we were not allowed to because Liverpool didn't want to loan him out.
"We ended up taking Stefano Okaka from Roma, but when we were looking for some help up front we enquired about David Ngog and were told he wasn't available.
"So obviously I've always had some consideration for him."
Despite hitting new heights this campaign, Hodgson refused to set a target for the youngster and insisted he will stay as reserve to star man Fernando Torres.
"To get 20-25 goals a season you have to be playing in the region of 50-60 games," he stated.
"In reality, I wouldn't want that at the moment because that would possibly mean Torres isn't playing a lot of games.
"I don't set targets for him in terms of number of goals, my target for him is to be good enough to play in the Liverpool first team so that if I decided just to play with one forward, he could do what he has been doing for us so far."
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