LFC 2015/16 Season

[Sugar Ape]

So, do you think this season is going to be a success? Rodgers last season? And, crucially, where will we finish? Vote in the poll.
 
Season preview from The Guardian.
 
http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2015/jul/30/liverpool-premier-league-preview-2015-16-brendan-rodgers
 

Premier League 2015-16 preview No8: Liverpool


After a season of disappointment that reached an anticlimax with the 6-1 defeat at the Britannia Stadium, Liverpool go back to Stoke on the opening weekend with much to prove and Brendan Rodgers feeling the pressure

Guardian writers’ predicted position: 5th (NB: this is not necessarily Sachin Nakrani’s prediction but the average of our writers’ tips)

Last season’s position: 6th

Odds to win the league (via Oddschecker): 22-1

Brendan Rodgers’ reaction to the release of the 2015-16 Premier League fixtures in mid-June would have made for an interesting sight. Up first for Liverpool: a trip to Stoke. Not what any club would want, but ever the optimist Rodgers may well have greeted the news with a smile. Here, after all, was the chance to make an immediate amends for arguably the lowest moment of his managerial career, to quickly right an almighty wrong.

To many Liverpool supporters it is now simply known as “the 6-1”. That scarcely believable afternoon last May when their team were humiliated at the Britannia Stadium. It was a rotten way to end what had been a rotten season and a wretched denouement to Steven Gerrard’s 17-year association with his boyhood club. Afterwards, with Liverpool having finished sixth in the Premier League and 25 points behind the champions, Chelsea, Rodgers accepted his job was on the line. “I’ve always said if the owners want me to go, then I’ll go,” he said.

But Rodgers survived and is poised to begin a fourth season in the Anfield hot seat. He is under pressure like never before and that is why a return to Stoke exactly 11 weeks after Liverpool’s biggest thumping in more than half a century may just be what the team and their manager needs. Ghosts can be laid.

Rodgers is a polarising figure and what is dividing many before the new season is the Northern Irishman’s credentials as a top-level manager. His backers will point to the 2013-14 campaign as proof that he is a forward-thinking, inspirational leader, capable of amalgamating players of varying talent and temperament into one of the most breathtaking teams English football has seen, and one that came agonisingly close to winning the club’s first league title in 24 years.

Rodgers’ critics, on the other hand, will shift attention to last season when Liverpool looked devoid of ideas and character on numerous occasions, failing to make any sort of impact in the title race as well as meekly surrendering to Aston Villa in the FA Cup semi-final and exiting the Champions League at the group stages.

The truth lies somewhere in the middle. Rodgers is neither the second coming nor the emperor’s new clothes. What he must prove, however, is that the 2013-14 campaign was not a flash in the pan and that, under his charge, Liverpool can reestablish themselves as a genuine force in English football. At the very least, they need to be contending for a top-four finish until the very last stages of the season.

What doesn’t help the manager’s cause is a second successive summer in which he has lost a key player. Raheem Sterling may not be Luis Suárez but he was an important element of Rodgers’s plans. Aged 20 and having been at the club since he was 15, Sterling was meant to be Anfield for some time. Instead he moved to Manchester City amid much acrimony.

Losing a player of Sterling’s quality and potential was a blow for Liverpool and the fear for many of their fans has been that the £49m City paid for him would not be reinvested wisely. After all, when Suárez moved to Barcelona last summer, Liverpool’s transfer committee, of which Rodgers is a part, took the £75m they has got for the Uruguayan and, alongside another £31m, signed nine players who largely ranged from the unproven to the unremarkable in order to beef up the squad and fit in line with the strategy of the owner, Fenway Sports Group, to get “maximum value for what is spent”.

A sensible long-term approach but in the short term the result was disastrous. Liverpool endured their worst start to a league campaign in 22 years, and although Suárez’s absence was an obvious factor, as was the long-term loss through injury of Daniel Sturridge, it was also the case that the vast majority of those who arrived in the summer simply did not come to the fore. Indeed the only one who can be deemed to have had a good season was the Germany Under-21 international Emre Can.

A lack of goals was Liverpool’s biggest problem, with the two forwards they brought in, Mario Balotelli and Rickie Lambert, scoring just three between them in the league. The team simply cannot afford to be so blunt again if they are to progress, and in that regard Sturridge’s absence until October after hip surgery and the departure of Liverpool’s two leading scorers from last season, Gerrard and Sterling, are unhelpful to say the least.

However, the purchases of Roberto Firmino and Christian Benteke suggest Rodgers and his fellow committee members have this time made the right moves to ensure the team are not short of firepower.

Firmino built a reputation during his four and a half years at Hoffenheim as being a tactically intelligent forward with an unrelenting work ethic. Remind you of anyone? OK, he’s no Suárez either, but for £29m Liverpool appear to have signed a player who, unlike Lambert and Balotelli, suits their style of play under Rodgers. And although the 23-year-old Brazil international is not a prolific goalscorer – he got just seven in 33 appearances for Hoffenheim last season – he knows how to provide opportunities for others. Indeed, no player created more goalscoring chances in the Bundesliga during the past two years (138) than Liverpool’s new No11.
 


If Firmino’s job is to supply the ammunition then Benteke’s is to fire the bullets, and a record of 49 goals in 101 games for Aston Villa shows the 24-year-old can do just that. Despite this, the Belgian’s arrival has not gone down well with all Liverpool fans, with his £30m-plus fee and sizeable frame bringing about Andy Carroll flashbacks.

Such comparisons are somewhat unfair – Benteke is a far more mobile player than Carroll, able to drive into space and directly at opposition defenders, with and without the ball. Yes, the £32.5m fee is high, but unlike with Carroll in 2011, and indeed with Balotelli last summer, Liverpool did not make their move in a blind panic – Benteke was a long-standing Rodgers target. “He’ll fit our tactical idea of the game and he can be a huge player for us,” said the manager.

Two other forwards have arrived: Danny Ings from Burnley and Divock Origi, from Lille, who was actually one of the nine players purchased last summer but remained with the French club for an extra season. Both are raw but also have the attributes to fit into Rodgers’ style of play.

Some would suggest the signings of Firmino, Benteke and Ings, alongside those of James Milner, Nathaniel Clyne, Joe Gomez and Adam Bogdan, show that for a second successive summer Liverpool have pursued a quantity-over-proven-quality transfer strategy, but the club were simply not in a position to shop at the top end of the market having failed to qualify for the Champions League, and what they can at least be praised for is acting quickly and decisively in regards to their transfer business.

And no deal was done quicker than that for Milner, with the midfielder signing on a free transfer from Manchester City just 11 days after the end of the previous season. Aged 29 and with two Premier League titles to his name, the England international provides Liverpool with a level of experience and winning knowhow it requires in the post-Gerrard era. His appears a shrewd move.

Rodgers’ task is to fit his players into a functioning, coherent unit, something Liverpool often did not appear to be last season when the manager took his reputation for tactical flexibility to bewildering extremes. A host of different formations were deployed, sometimes in a single match, with players regularly used out of position. It all came to a head during the “battering at the Britannia” when Liverpool looked lost at sea.

What seems certain is that Rodgers will go with a four-man defence, having deployed a three centre-back system for a period last season, with Milner and the new captain, Jordan Henderson, his midfield bedrock. The top end of the pitch is less easy to call with a host of players vying for first-team places, including 19-year-old winger Jordon Ibe, who caught the eye during Liverpool’s recent tour of Australia and Asia. But one thing is for sure: the team’s attacking shape should centre around Philippe Coutinho. The Brazilian was Liverpool’s one real shining light last season and has what it takes to dazzle for years to come.
 


It is perhaps unfair that there is so much scrutiny on Rodgers following last season’s failings. After all, he was not wholly responsible for the players who arrived post-Suárez and the players themselves must take their share of blame for how the team performed. But as is the nature of football, it is the manager who carries the greatest burden for failure and, having kept his job while two of his backroom allies in Colin Pascoe and Mike Marsh lost theirs, Rodgers must now prove he was the right man all along.

It will not be easy given the loss of Sterling, the task of bedding in another batch of recruits and juggling a domestic campaign with the gruelling rigours of the Europa League. That’s not to mention a start to the Premier League season in which, post-Stoke, Liverpool travel to Arsenal, Manchester United, Everton, Tottenham, Chelsea and Manchester City before the end of November.

But Rodgers has no choice but to rise to the challenge. His job, almost certainly, depends on it.

“I promise I’ll fight for my life and the people in this city,” Rodgers said upon becoming Liverpool manager in June 2012. Now is the time to come out swinging.

[Jairzinho]

We'll do enough to finish ahead of Spurs and Southampton, but we'll be miles behind the top four. Can't see us doing anything in Europe. Hopefully we win one of the two domestic cups.

 

I think our transfer dealings have been less shit than last summer but still not particularly good. 

[Hades]

Firmino was a fantastic signing, Clyne very good, Milner very good(albeit not in central midfield). The Benteke signing has ruined it for me though.

 

I can imagine Coutinho and Firmino playing a nice little one-two, popping it off to Benteke's feet and the big lump losing the ball as our players have made runs past him.

 

The lack of a defensive midfielder is gross negligence by this point.

[Gym Beglin]

That picture of Benteke is genuinely frightening.

 

He looks like a Ray Harryhausen creation.

[chris71]

I honestly have not got a clue at the moment. Think after the first 5 or 6 games we'll get a good idea of how things are looking.

[Gym Beglin]

[Babb'sBurstNad]

I went for sixth, but I think we might sneak fifth if Spurs lose Lloris and Southampton don't get off to the kind of fairytale start they did last season.

 

My worries are that the fixture list will hand us a few hidings early on, and between that and some of Rodgers' tinkering with new players and formations we'll end up in a tailspin that'll be hard to recover from. 

 

We've got more firepower than last season, but I don't see it working well enough as a unit to counteract our defensive woes. All of our signings are good, but as a collective under Rodgers I'm struggling to have much faith in our chances to make it higher than fifth. Hope I'm wrong though and someone shoves this post down my throat.

[Original202]

I think we've improved, but not enough to catch any of the teams above us so I think 5th.

 

5th wouldn't be a total failure on its own though, if we were in and around the top 4 competing with the the others and we finished 5th by 1 point that's very different to being off the pace all season and finishing closer to 6th or 7th place.

[Guest Super Sub]

I think it will be a success relative to last season in so much as we will se an all round improvement from last season. I think by the end of the season we will not be asking for Rodgers to go as we will see an opportunity in the summer transfer window for one or two players to improve us. I voted for us to finish 4th but I am basing that on Di Mario leaving United and they buy shite to replace him. However I wouldn't be surprised if they went in for Bale to replace him.

[Turkish Delight]

I don't think we'll be far off the top 4 as we weren't that far away last year and i don't think we'll be as terrible as last year again.

 

I know I'm in the minority but I still don't think that United team looks that special and I expect us to to be fairly competitive with them over the season.  I've voted that they'll finish above us but I wouldn't be surprised if we do sneak into 4th.

[Paco]

Thursday 30 July 2015 15.42 BST

 

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Comments822

 

Guardian writers’ predicted position: 5th (NB: this is not necessarily Sachin Nakrani’s prediction but the average of our writers’ tips)

 

Last season’s position: 6th

 

Odds to win the league (via Oddschecker):22-1

 

Brendan Rodgers’ reaction to the release of the 2015-16 Premier League fixtures in mid-June would have made for an interesting sight. Up first for Liverpool: a trip to Stoke. Not what any club would want, but ever the optimist Rodgers may well have greeted the news with a smile. Here, after all, was the chance to make an immediate amends for arguably the lowest moment of his managerial career, to quickly right an almighty wrong.

 

To many Liverpool supporters it is now simply known as “the 6-1”. That scarcely believable afternoon last May when their team were humiliated at the Britannia Stadium. It was a rotten way to end what had been a rotten season and a wretched denouement to Steven Gerrard’s 17-year association with his boyhood club. Afterwards, with Liverpool having finished sixth in the Premier League and 25 points behind the champions, Chelsea, Rodgers accepted his job was on the line. “I’ve always said if the owners want me to go, then I’ll go,” he said.

 

But Rodgers survived and is poised to begin a fourth season in the Anfield hot seat. He is under pressure like never before and that is why a return to Stoke exactly 11 weeks after Liverpool’s biggest thumping in more than half a century may just be what the team and their manager needs. Ghosts can be laid.

 

Advertisement

 

Rodgers is a polarising figure and what is dividing many before the new season is the Northern Irishman’s credentials as a top-level manager. His backers will point to the 2013-14 campaign as proof that he is a forward-thinking, inspirational leader, capable of amalgamating players of varying talent and temperament into one of the most breathtaking teams English football has seen, and one that came agonisingly close to winning the club’s first league title in 24 years.

 

Rodgers’ critics, on the other hand, will shift attention to last season when Liverpool looked devoid of ideas and character on numerous occasions, failing to make any sort of impact in the title race as well as meekly surrendering to Aston Villa in the FA Cup semi-final and exiting the Champions League at the group stages.

 

Advertisement

 

The truth lies somewhere in the middle. Rodgers is neither the second coming nor the emperor’s new clothes. What he must prove, however, is that the 2013-14 campaign was not a flash in the pan and that, under his charge, Liverpool can reestablish themselves as a genuine force in English football. At the very least, they need to be contending for a top-four finish until the very last stages of the season.

 

What doesn’t help the manager’s cause is a second successive summer in which he has lost a key player. Raheem Sterling may not be Luis Suárez but he was an important element of Rodgers’s plans. Aged 20 and having been at the club since he was 15, Sterling was meant to be Anfield for some time. Instead he moved to Manchester Cityamid much acrimony.

 

Losing a player of Sterling’s quality and potential was a blow for Liverpool and the fear for many of their fans has been that the £49m City paid for him would not be reinvested wisely. After all, when Suárez moved to Barcelona last summer, Liverpool’s transfer committee, of which Rodgers is a part, took the £75m they has got for the Uruguayan and, alongside another £31m, signed nine players who largely ranged from the unproven to theunremarkable in order to beef up the squad and fit in line with the strategy of the owner, Fenway Sports Group, to get “maximum value for what is spent”.

 

A sensible long-term approach but in the short term the result was disastrous. Liverpool endured their worst start to a league campaign in 22 years, and although Suárez’s absence was an obvious factor, as was the long-term loss through injury ofDaniel Sturridge, it was also the case that the vast majority of those who arrived in the summer simply did not come to the fore. Indeed the only one who can be deemed to have had a good season was the Germany Under-21 international Emre Can.

 

A lack of goals was Liverpool’s biggest problem, with the two forwards they brought in, Mario Balotelli and Rickie Lambert, scoring just three between them in the league. The team simply cannot afford to be so blunt again if they are to progress, and in that regard Sturridge’s absence until October after hip surgery and the departure of Liverpool’s two leading scorers from last season, Gerrard and Sterling, are unhelpful to say the least.

 

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However, the purchases of Roberto Firminoand Christian Benteke suggest Rodgers and his fellow committee members have this time made the right moves to ensure the team are not short of firepower.

 

Firmino built a reputation during his four and a half years at Hoffenheim as being a tactically intelligent forward with an unrelenting work ethic. Remind you of anyone? OK, he’s no Suárez either, but for £29m Liverpool appear to have signed a player who, unlike Lambert and Balotelli, suits their style of play under Rodgers. And although the 23-year-old Brazil international is not a prolific goalscorer – he got just seven in 33 appearances for Hoffenheim last season – he knows how to provide opportunities for others. Indeed, no player created more goalscoring chances in the Bundesliga during the past two years (138) than Liverpool’s new No11.

 

 Phillipe Coutinho, here playing against Porto B in pre-season, is a player around whom Liverpool can build their attacking shape. Photograph: Nick Taylor/Liverpool FC/Liverpool FC via Getty Images

 

If Firmino’s job is to supply the ammunition then Benteke’s is to fire the bullets, and a record of 49 goals in 101 games for Aston Villa shows the 24-year-old can do just that. Despite this, the Belgian’s arrival has not gone down well with all Liverpool fans, with his £30m-plus fee and sizeable frame bringing about Andy Carroll flashbacks.

 

Such comparisons are somewhat unfair – Benteke is a far more mobile player than Carroll, able to drive into space and directly at opposition defenders, with and without the ball. Yes, the £32.5m fee is high, but unlike with Carroll in 2011, and indeed with Balotelli last summer, Liverpool did not make their move in a blind panic – Benteke was a long-standing Rodgers target. “He’ll fit our tactical idea of the game and he can be a huge player for us,” said the manager.

 

Advertisement

 

Two other forwards have arrived: Danny Ings from Burnley and Divock Origi, from Lille, who was actually one of the nine players purchased last summer but remained with the French club for an extra season. Both are raw but also have the attributes to fit into Rodgers’ style of play.

 

Some would suggest the signings of Firmino, Benteke and Ings, alongside those of James Milner, Nathaniel Clyne, Joe Gomez andAdam Bogdan, show that for a second successive summer Liverpool have pursued a quantity-over-proven-quality transfer strategy, but the club were simply not in a position to shop at the top end of the market having failed to qualify for the Champions League, and what they can at least be praised for is acting quickly and decisively in regards to their transfer business.

 

And no deal was done quicker than that for Milner, with the midfielder signing on a free transfer from Manchester City just 11 days after the end of the previous season. Aged 29 and with two Premier League titles to his name, the England international provides Liverpool with a level of experience and winning knowhow it requires in the post-Gerrard era. His appears a shrewd move.

 

Rodgers’ task is to fit his players into a functioning, coherent unit, something Liverpool often did not appear to be last season when the manager took his reputation for tactical flexibility to bewildering extremes. A host of different formations were deployed, sometimes in a single match, with players regularly used out of position. It all came to a head during the “battering at the Britannia” when Liverpool looked lost at sea.

 

What seems certain is that Rodgers will go with a four-man defence, having deployed a three centre-back system for a period last season, with Milner and the new captain, Jordan Henderson, his midfield bedrock. The top end of the pitch is less easy to call with a host of players vying for first-team places, including 19-year-old winger Jordon Ibe, who caught the eye during Liverpool’s recent tour of Australia and Asia. But one thing is for sure: the team’s attacking shape should centre around Philippe Coutinho. The Brazilian was Liverpool’s one real shining light last season and has what it takes to dazzle for years to come.

 

 Christian Benteke, a long-standing Brendan Rodgers target, has been brought in to ensure Liverpool do not lack firepower. Photograph: John Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty Images

 

It is perhaps unfair that there is so much scrutiny on Rodgers following last season’s failings. After all, he was not wholly responsible for the players who arrived post-Suárez and the players themselves must take their share of blame for how the team performed. But as is the nature of football, it is the manager who carries the greatest burden for failure and, having kept his job while two of his backroom allies in Colin Pascoe and Mike Marsh lost theirs, Rodgers must now prove he was the right man all along.

 

Advertisement

 

It will not be easy given the loss of Sterling, the task of bedding in another batch of recruits and juggling a domestic campaign with the gruelling rigours of the Europa League. That’s not to mention a start to the Premier League season in which, post-Stoke, Liverpool travel to Arsenal, Manchester United, Everton, Tottenham, Chelsea and Manchester City before the end of November. But Rodgers has no choice but to rise to the challenge. His job, almost certainly, depends on it.

 

“I promise I’ll fight for my life and the people in this city,” Rodgers said upon becoming Liverpool manager in June 2012. Now is the time to come out swinging.

[JermainePennant]

Fourth will be the lowest we will finish, if we come through the first seven away games and are not far off first we will challenge for the title.

[Bjornebye]

Fourth will be the lowest we will finish, if we come through the first seven away games and are not far off first we will challenge for the title.

That if is the size of the galaxy.

 

[JermainePennant]

That if is the size of the galaxy.

City, Arsenal and Manu haven't been in great form at the start of the season the last two three years, they will also be playing cl games while our main players are preparing for the prem.

 

As I said a lot last season if we had had a decent start we would have been in the title race, the same applies this season and we will have good games the second half of the season.

 

Manu are weaker up front and Schweinsteiger is no guarentee imo, Cech flopped under attacking managers at Chelsea so I'm interested to see how he'll do at Arsenal.

 

We could have a bad start and I'm not banking on a title challenge but Im very confident about getting in the top 4.

[an tha]

Sadly i think our run of away games at the start of the season will do for us and we will never really recover....the last thing you want when bedding in loads of new players again are all your hardest aways all in a row at the start....the arsenal and man u back to back games in jan as well will likely stall any recovery (we always seem to get these tough games back to back where the damage of defeats is more pronounced than when they are interspersed with easy games)

 

So all that said i predict same as last year 6th and Brendan Rodgers rightly sacked.... i am desperate to be proved wrong!

[an tha]

Our record against the top 4 has to improve for us to have any designs on 4th - we took 5 points from those 24 available....if we had taken 12 with one of the the wins being against man utd we would have been 4th

[bizzle10]

i honestly dont think anybody knows what to expect from us i reckon either we will challenge for the title or brendan will out of a job by christmas

[ZonkoVille77]

We're fuckin shite

[Bobby Hundreds]

I think 6th because I'm a pessimist and last season we were often that appalling I couldn't believe we actually trained during the week or did any type of tactical work. A complete contrast to the last half of the season before. A simple fundamental truth in life is practice improves. If you are shit, make them practise more, I don't give a shit if they want to be back at their mansions before dinnertime to rattle their wag. You have displayed shocking ball control and an inability to pass the ball, you stay every day until I see why you made it this far.

 

I also don't want to see a team all over us and every single man and his dog saying if we don't change something we are going to concede soon and we just wait until the inevitable goal comes then make a change 10 minutes later. Manage Rodgers... look at whats unfolding recognise where your side is being exploited and using knowledge which you should of acquired throughout the years, apply it. It won't always work but then doing nothing and expecting something probably has even less chance. I just at least want to see that some kind of reasoning has gone into what we actually see on the pitch. Also play players where they actually have the best chance of showing their ability.

 

Aside from that I'm hoping my low expectations mean I end up pleasantly surprised.

[manwiththestick]

Get a half decent start and then Sturridge back and staying fit (I know..) and I think we will be 4th/5th. Forth depends on how Utd do imo because I think Chelsea, City and Arsenal are certs.

[Arl arse]

We'll be in the bottom 3 come November.

[ZonkoVille77]

We'll be in the bottom 3 come November.

That's the spirit!

[Arl arse]

That's the spirit!

Of the Championship, how's that for Spirit.

[King Emlyn]

We'll pip Spurs to 5th and finish between 7-9 points off fourth place which will be City, think it will be a really close 3 way battle for the title between the other three.

[Red House]

5th, but much closer to 6th than 4th.