Jordan Henderson and the rest of the Liverpool squad return to pre-season training next week and the England man has been talking up our chances for the new campaign on our official website.
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Speaking about his aims for the year ahead, he said: “It’s a very big season for us as a team and as a club. I think we have shown great intent early on in the transfer window to do our business early and get the players that we want.
“We need to make sure that we start the season well and we’re all on the same page in what we want to achieve.”
We couldn’t agree more, so with that in mind we’ve put together this list of the five things it’s most important for us to achieve over the next twelve months. Take a look and see if you agree.
5) Avenge last season’s embarrassment
We must start how we mean to go on. Whether you look at it as lucky or not, we’ve been given an immediate opportunity to atone for last season’s 6-1 thrashing at the hands of Stoke City, which was arguably our most embarrassing result of all-time. We return to the Britannia Stadium in little over a month’s time for our first game of the new season and a comfortable victory will prove that we mean business for the year ahead. Anything else, including – dare we say it – a repeat of what happened earlier this year, could be calamitous for Brendan Rodgers.
4) Prove that their is life after Steven Gerrard
It still feels surreal to refer to Gerrard as the ‘former’ Liverpool captain. Despite the veteran midfielder not being anywhere near his best last season, he still ended the campaign as our top scorer in all competitions, underlining his continuing importance to our squad. James Milner has already come in to help take his place, but we can’t rely purely on the former Manchester City man to fill the void. The likes of Henderson, Joe Allen and Emre Can all need to step up and prove that we can manage without the exploits of our greatest ever player.
3) Get the best out of Brendan Rodgers’ signings
It’s probably fair to say that our new signings were underwhelming in their performances last season. Mario Balotelli, Rickie Lambert, Lazar Markovic and Dejan Lovren were all well under-par, while Alberto Moreno and Adam Lallana can probably just about hold their heads high. Only Emre Can showed any sort of consistency and that’s something that’s going to have to change this year. Six new players have arrived again this summer and if Rodgers’ latest crop of arrivals don’t perform either then the pressure is going to continue to rest on his shoulders.
2) Win a trophy and end the drought
Liverpool last lifted a trophy in 2012, shortly before Brendan Rodgers arrived at the club. Our penalty shoot-out victory over Cardiff City represents our only success in a major final since 2006, when we won the FA Cup. That needs to change. We came close last season, reaching the semi-finals of both the League Cup and the FA Cup, but we can surely go a couple better with our new-look squad. It’s getting to the stage where it really doesn’t matter which competition we win, Rodgers just needs to get the monkey off his back and his hands on some silverware.
1) Seal a return to Champions League football
As welcome as a trophy would be, there’s little doubting our most important ambition this season. It’s the same as it was two summers ago when we were preparing for the 2013-14 season, a year in which we would eventually finish in a hugely impressive second place. We didn’t do ourselves justice on our return to Europe’s premier competition last year, dropping out in the group stage after six fairly forgettable performances. We have this year, playing in the Europa League, to get reacquainted with playing on the continent before tackling the big boys the following season.
