London: Former Manchester United soccer great George Best has made a slight recovery after spending four days heavily sedated but is still on a ventilator, his doctor said on Tuesday.

“He is alive, his brain is working and he is partly conscious,” Professor Roger Williams told reporters outside the Cromwell Hospital in London.

“He is a desperately ill man but certainly all of us have been very excited by the fact that when the sedation was removed he did regain some level of response.

“What we hope over the next 24 hours is (that) his brain will recover further so that he can come off the ventilator.”

Best, 59, who has been in hospital since the beginning of October, was re-admitted to intensive care on Friday with a lung infection.

On Monday, Williams said the former European Footballer of the Year needed to show signs of improvement quickly if he was to survive his latest illness and on Tuesday the doctor said he had been impressed with the performance.

“I think he’s a tremendous fighter,” he said. “He’s unbelievable. None of us I think have seen anybody come through so many serious complications as he has.”

Best has had an alcohol problem for much of his adult life and underwent a liver transplant in 2002 after years of heavy drinking.

A former Northern Ireland international, he was initially admitted to hospital after having a reaction to the treatment he was receiving for his new liver and then suffered internal bleeding linked to a bowel infection. (Reuters)