David Moores has probably been too busy beating himself up over his decision to sell his beloved Liverpool to a couple of cowboys to remember some of the better things he did for the club during his 16-year stay as chairman.

Moores is known to be deeply upset by the manner in which Liverpool’s name has been dragged through the mud under the ownership of Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr, but while the danger is that he will be remembered — however harshly — as the man who sold a great institution, offering to dig his hands deep into his pockets to fund the £9 million signing of Dirk Kuyt was one of his more sensible decisions.

It has not always seemed that way. Kuyt is about as unfashionable as a player at a top-four club could be, the one who is easy to malign or target when things are not going well, the one whose name children will usually decide against having printed on the back of their replica shirts when it is far more glamorous — and acceptable in the eyes of schoolfriends — to plump for Torres or Gerrard.

But where once the gushing assessment of Kuyt’s qualities that Rafael Benítez delivered during the build-up to last night’s Champions League match against PSV Eindhoven would once have invited scepticism, the Dutchman is winning round his critics. There is still some doubt as to whether Benítez signed Kuyt from Feyenoord principally as a goalscorer or simply a stopgap as he waited for someone better to come along.

Having scored 116 goals in the four seasons before his move to Liverpool, Kuyt had pedigree as a striker, although if PSV are anything to go by, maybe we should no longer read too much into success in the Eredivisie in the Netherlands. Instead, Kuyt’s reincarnation as a right winger has owed everything to a remarkable work ethic and a willingness to sacrifice himself for the greater good of the team.

Rumours abound that Kuyt may leave Merseyside soon, with Hamburg one of the clubs eager to secure his services, but his loss to Liverpool would be more keenly felt than many might believe. He will never dazzle on the right flank as Cristiano Ronaldo does for Manchester United, but there are few more consistent performers in Benítez’s team than the 28-year-old and while the goals may be harder to come by now than they were in the Netherlands, he retains an ability to score at important junctures, as he did against Standard Liège in qualifying for the Champions League group phase and again last night.

Robbie Keane and Steven Gerrard stole the headlines but Kuyt, understated as he is, would probably not have it any other way.