Brendan Rodgers Believes That Squad Depth Can Make Liverpool Competitive Again
In his first official interview since the end of last season, Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers has endorsed the competitiveness of his squad heading into the new Premier League season. Liverpool will also compete on four fronts with fixtures in the UEFA Europa League, The FA Cup, and The League Cup.
Speaking to Liverpool’s official website, Brendan Rodgers stated that, “In terms of priorities, it’s about getting back into that top four again and we’re very determined to look to get a trophy this year. Every player will contribute towards that.”
Rodgers believes that the key to Liverpool’s success next season might be based on the idea of rotating players throughout the season in order to maintain fitness.
“I don’t know if I’ll be rotating too much. If you’re in the team and you’re playing well you can be in the team. I felt I needed to do it last year and certainly there’ll be moments in competitions where I will have to do that but the idea is to get the squad fighting. We have to improve this year and if you’re playing well, working well, you play games. It’s as simple as that.”
Rodgers has also paid tribute to the new club captain Jordan Henderson.
“Obviously with Jordan we’ve had an iconic figure here, captain for so long, and the idea to give Jordan the vice-captaincy last year was to learn some of those traits off Steven. He captained the club incredibly well in his period and I just felt Jordan would learn well off that, but on top of that add his own qualities to it. think that the players have really accepted it.”
He added, “I can see already how he’s grown in stature and that’s important because I think you can give some players the captaincy and they can fold with it, it can have a negative effect.”
Liverpool are set to welcome Coutinho, Ilori, Emre Can, and Firmino to the pre-season tour of Australia on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Christian Benteke will complete his medical next week, but will prepare for the new season at Melwood. It is reported that Liverpool will pay £16 million up front for the Belgian striker with a structured payment plan to pay off the remaining balance to Aston Villa.
[Image via Wikipedia]
