He hoped to make an impact following Gerrard's appointment but a knee injury sustained during the club's summer training camp in Spain ruled him out again.

September saw him make a brief return against Villarreal in the Europa League as well as two appearances against St Johnstone and Ayr but he was soon forced back into the treatment room as the pain in his knee refused to budge.

However, now following successful surgery on the joint, Gerrard has pencilled in a return date for the end of January and hopes the Scotland international's comeback will help fire up an attack that has mustered just one goal from open play in the last six games.

Gerrard, speaking ahead of Wednesday's trip to face Hibs at Easter Road, said: "Graham Dorrans is progressing well. If everything keeps going in the right direction then hopefully he will be back sometime between the end of January and beginning of February, if all goes well.

"He is a player we need back as soon as possible because he helps us at the top end of the pitch with his creativity and goal threat.

"You could see glimpses with Graham when he nearly came back earlier in the season. But you could also see in his head that the injury wasn't right.

"The sensible thing to do was to get some help off the surgeon and hopefully that's all behind him now and he can look forward to coming back and helping our final push towards the end of the season."

Gerrard also expects Jamie Murphy to make a major impact when he finally returns from knee surgery.

The winger ruptured his cruciate ligament on Kilmarnock's plastic pitch back in August and is expected to miss most of the season.

"Jamie's working really hard," said his manager. "He's on double sessions and he's nine to five most days.

"He's got a really good opportunity now to do everything he needs to do to make sure his body is as strong as possible for when he comes back.

"But you can already see on the eye the benefits of all the gym work with his rehab, so I expect to see Jamie coming back firing.

"But he won't be rushed as it's a very serious injury he's had. We've missed those two."

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