Eleven weeks on from the catastrophic end to the 2014-15 Premier League campaign, Liverpool are refreshed, revitalised and ready to go again.
The Reds have strengthened the squad – spending big money on exciting attackers and doing neat business in other areas.
Steven Gerrard and Raheem Sterling have both left the club, but manager Brendan Rodgers still has the backing of Fenway Sports Group, for the time being at least.
To look back on the summer, and look ahead at what’s to come this season, I spoke to Simon Hughes – freelance reporter for the Telegraph and the Independent, and author of Men in White Suits and Red Machine.
We kick off the season at Stoke, and we will talk about that game in more detail, but this is where Brendan Rodgers must have thought he’d taken charge of his final game as Liverpool manager back in May. Were you at all surprised that he kept his job despite that humiliation and all-round poor season?
I wouldn’t say I was surprised that he kept his job. I thought, after the fume had died down, that there’d be some sort of cold analysis of what had gone wrong and where the improvements could be made at Liverpool over the summer.
It was the kind of result that does undermine any manager. If you lose 6-1 away from home in any game, against any team, at any point in the season, you’re going to have questions that need answering. It came at the end of a really disappointing season, and I thought on the day that the players’ minds seemed to be elsewhere, and they maybe weren’t fighting for the manager as much as you’d hope.
The fact that it was the last game of the season is absolutely no excuse. You know when you play Stoke that it’s going to be a difficult game no matter what. I would have thought that at any point of the season – whether it’s the first game, the last game, or there’s something riding on it – you know you’re going to have to have some level of focus against Stoke and that obviously wasn’t there.
I can understand why it led to a suggestion that one or two players had stopped playing for the manager to a certain extent. But I think Liverpool have responded quite impressively, actually, this summer. I suppose you have to give credit where it’s due.
The Raheem Sterling situation has kind of undermined certain good transfers that have been made. They have had to address one or two areas which needed to be addressed. I think Nathaniel Clyne, James Milner and Christian Benteke are good signings, and all of these players should do well for Liverpool.
My only concern is that they haven’t been able to inject into the team that one player with a bit of star quality. I don’t really see that in the squad. I know Liverpool teams in the past haven’t necessarily had ‘star players’ as such, but they’ve had players with a bit of star quality. They’d never sign stars; they’d make them into stars. Maybe one might emerge, perhaps Jordon Ibe, but it’s unfair to ask that of a player who is only 19-years-old.
You look at the other teams – the top four – and they’ve got players who are match winners on any given day, and I’m still not quite sure whether you can see that in Liverpool’s team.
So, the pressure’s on. The pressure’s still on Brendan. I think he is probably under more pressure than the other managers in the top four or five.
Having said that, I think Louis van Gaal is under quite a lot of pressure as well at Manchester United. I know they qualified for the Champions League, but they didn’t do it in any particular style, and I don’t think they’ll tolerate another season like that. I think the novelty factor of his eccentricities will probably wear off quite soon. They need to show some sure signs of progress and be close to winning something. He will be under pressure if United don’t start well.
But you see Liverpool’s fixture list, and the away games particularly are nightmarish. They would have been the last fixtures that Brendan would have wanted at the start of the season. Although, it does give him a great opportunity to prove a few people wrong and prove a few points.
There could be a few interesting months ahead.
You mentioned there about Liverpool not going out and getting that ‘star player’, do you think – realistically – that they could have gone out and got somebody of a higher calibre than Benteke and Firmino?
I think if Liverpool wanted to do that, they’d have to revise the wage structure. Ultimately, now, the strength of a football club is defined by the wages that they pay out; not necessarily than the transfer fee. It’s quite a strange market now. Obviously you get so much attention drawn to the transfer fee – because traditionally that is what has always been the biggest thing – but now, the best players are the ones who command the biggest wages. Liverpool, unfortunately, aren’t quite in the market for doing that.
Even Luis Suarez, when they signed him, he became that ‘star player’ but it took him a few seasons to do that. They managed to get him because he was essentially damaged goods at Ajax, and other clubs were put off signing him because of his track record there.
So, maybe, for a few years, Liverpool haven’t been able to do that. It was always going to be difficult. You look back at Alexis Sanchez last summer; I thought that was a massive opportunity missed for Liverpool. They can say that he wanted to live in London, but if Liverpool had offered him a higher wage than Arsenal did, I’m pretty certain that his agent would have said, “Actually, I think Liverpool is a better move for you. You should go there.”
That is also what led to Raheem Sterling’s exit. I don’t want to use the word ‘sympathy’ when it comes to the Sterling thing, but I can understand certain frustrations that maybe he and his agent would have held and harboured for months. And that allowed the situation to get bigger, and get out of hand as it did. I didn’t think anybody came out of that particularly well. Obviously the player and the agent didn’t but, maybe if the club would have seen the situation developing, it could have been addressed, and it might not have happened.
I think the issue with wages is always going to be a bit of a problem with Liverpool. We say every summer that they’re only a couple of players away from being where they want to be, and I think that is actually true. If they signed one or two really top quality players that settle straight away – a 30-goal striker, and a centre-half who dominates the defence and stops the conceding of goals – then Liverpool are probably going to finish in the top four aren’t they?
That was the difference last season. If Liverpool had signed Sanchez – who scored 25 goals – instead of Mario Balotelli, they probably would have finished in the Champions League.
There have been a lot of incomings this summer – for the second year in succession – and Rodgers has brought in Sean O’Driscoll, Gary McAllister, and Pep Lijnders to work with him. There are a lot of changes going on that could take a bit of time to settle down. Does that concern you at all?
It does, a little bit. I think the strategy has been slightly more thought out this summer. They’ve signed a lot of players with Premier League experience, so you would hope that the settling in process is a bit quicker.
It’s a big step up for a lot of these players who have come in from clubs where the expectations aren’t quite as big as what they are at Liverpool. We’ve seen so many players in the past who do well at other clubs, and have fantastic goalscoring records and provide lots of assists – like Robbie Keane, Stewart Downing and Andy Carroll in recent years. But they come to Liverpool and just realise that the focus is on you every single week for 10 months of the year, and any drop in form is spotted. Whereas, at other clubs, that’s not necessarily the case. That is a bit of a concern from the manager’s point of view.
I think they have to all gel and click very quickly for Liverpool to have a good season. Momentum is such a big thing in football. If Liverpool win the first two games – against Stoke and Bournemouth – that’s six points out of six, suddenly the crowd get up and are behind them. Then you go to Arsenal with a lot of confidence, and could potentially nick a point there – who knows what might happen?
They need to get some momentum early on in the season, grind some results out, and then you never know. Momentum is such a big thing and if you can get that – it could propel them throughout the whole season, which we saw two years ago. They went on some amazing runs in that season, which was really underpinned by momentum. I get the impression – particularly with the way Brendan wants his teams to play – that it’s very much confidence-related football. To execute that passing style, you’ve got to be very, very confident. And if you’re not confident, it really does show.
If you can get confidence and momentum into the team quickly, it could turn out to be a good season. If you don’t, it could be a bit of a struggle.
Part two of the interview with Simon Hughes – in which we discuss the upcoming Stoke fixture in more detail, and expectations for the season – will be available very soon.
If you can’t wait until then, why not take a look at Simon’s two books: Men in White Suits, and Red Machine.
