Former Liverpool star John Barnes says he believes that the Reds’ relatively young squad can be inspired on to greater things by the backing of the club’s fans.
Despite a quite dismal campaign from the team last term, Barnes says he was pleased with the progress made by some signings as the season progressed. He went on to say that he believes progress made by players can again be added to next season with assistance of fans both home and away.
“The disappointment of the last eight or nine games really superseded the reality of looking at the squad we had, what we had achieved, the potential that we actually have,” he told Liverpoolfc.com.
“[We must] stick with these players and support these players – and Liverpool fans have always been good at that.
“For example, Emre Can, [Adam] Lallana, [Lazar] Markovic; at other clubs they would not have been able to come out of the bad patch they started with but the fans supported them.
“None of them started well but because the Liverpool fans supported them, all of a sudden you see Can come to the fore, you see Markovic improve, you see Lallana improve.
“This is what we need. It was disappointing last year but what are we going to do? How are we going to get the club back to challenging for a top four place?
“What we can do is get behind the team, support the team, empower the team, inspire the team, rather than the other way round.
“We’ve always had players who can do it the other way round: [Luis] Suarez, [Steven] Gerrard, [Fernando] Torres, even from before then in Bill Shankly’s time.
“We inspire the team, we support them, and that will bring out the best in them.”
