Keegan wants striker to adapt

The summer signing from Independiente has yet to feature for City this season despite a number of injuries to a several front-men at Maine Road.

Keegan believes that Vuoso has taken longer than expected to settle into things, but that he bought him for the future anyway rather than the present.

The South American hit a hat-trick for the reserves in their Manchester Senior Cup win against Bury two weeks ago, and Keegan feels he is finally finding his feet in English football.

"The hat-trick which he got against Bury is the first time he has come alive," Keegan told the club's official website. "He has found the training fairly difficult and he has certainly found it difficult to understand as he has to learn the language.

"He will get better and better the more he understands and the more he works with us and the more we raise his fitness level.

"It is a different type of training in Argentina and a different game. So it is now a question of how he can learn. Up to last week he had been pretty slow but then he got a hat-trick and played well. Now he has to build on that.

"He needs to score some goals. He is very good in the air for his size, a very good header of the ball, and he has got courage.

"The other thing he has to learn is what we are about and what we expect of him. He has to learn how he would fit into our system. So it is softly softly with him.

"We told the chairman when we signed him that he is one for the future he is not a player for now."