It sounds dramatic but this is the biggest summer Liverpool have ever had. Get it wrong and the danger is we disappear from that select group of five or six teams who are up there competing every year.
I know the club fell off its perch long ago in terms of winning titles. But in the years since we’ve always been in the pack of clubs just behind. We risk slipping away unless the glaring weaknesses in our squad are addressed.
What that humiliating defeat to Stoke on the final day highlighted more than anything is that we lack presence. We don’t have big players.
Going into that game I fully expected Liverpool to get beaten. I knew that line up would struggle to hand Stoke’s physicality but never did I expect us to lose 6-1.
It’s about more than ability, we’re lacking more than that, It’s a lack of personalities, a lack of characters and a lack of strength – both physical and mental.
It’s the end of a really disappointing season for Liverpool. The reality is we didn’t deserve to finish any higher than sixth. I look at our performances over the past nine months and that’s about right. We can have no complaints.
Life without Luis Suarez was always going to be tough but after all the investment in signings last summer we all expected more. It’s too early to judge some of those new players but the majority haven’t given the club much of a return on the fees paid for them.
Brendan Rodgers admitted himself that a result like the one at Stoke leaves him under massive pressure. He was under pressure before that anyway having not achieved the target of Champions League qualification.
But there’s a difference between being under pressure and facing the sack. As it stands he retains the backing of the owners and we’ll have to wait and see if that stands once this end of season review has been completed.
