What Should Liverpool Look To Achieve Next Season?

 I think the general response to Brendan Rodgers from Liverpool fans this season has been fairly positive, our new manager has made changes and the majority of them for the better. With the spate of sackings and retirements this year he will begin his second season in charge at Anfield as the sixth longest serving manager in the Premier League.  

 We finished seventh this season which isn't good enough for Liverpool, but the performances over the last few months have left most Kopites with a feeling of optimism for our future. One thing came back into my head from our reasonably recent history though - didn't Gerard Houllier get the sack for actually finishing fourth?

 Yes, he did. So what's changed, why was finishing fourth not enough and now finishing seventh is considered a promising start? Well, there's a few reasons. I think the main factor is beyond the club's control, that being the huge financial backing given to Chelsea and now Manchester City. Back in 2004 when Houllier was let go there was still a genuine belief we could challenge for and even win the title. Now that looks much harder with too many clubs above us who can simply go out and buy the best players from all around the world, something that we can't do to the same extent. To win the title in the early part of the century we would have had to finish above Arsenal and Man Utd, now we would have to overtake the same pair, plus Man City, Chelsea and an emerging Spurs side. 

 I've had a look at the league table from 2003/04 and it's interesting to compare it to this season -

2003/04 Played 38, won 16, drawn 12, lost 10, goal difference +18, points 60
2012/13 Played 38, won 16, drawn 13, lost 9, goal difference +28, points 61

 So, almost identical then, one more draw this time around and a better goal difference, and a solitary point better off, and yet we finished three places lower than in 03/04. In 2003/04 60 points qualified us for the Champions League (which we then went on and won) and this season Spurs reached 72 and had to settle for Thursday night football next term.

 The conclusion from that is that qualification for the Champions League is harder to achieve now than ever, making Brendan Rodgers' task an extremely difficult one. I think most Liverpool fans are realistic enough to realise that winning the title will only come with a strong financial input allowing the club to compete with everyone else when it comes to transfer fees and wages. And the only way to strengthen the club's finances is to regularly qualify for the Champions League.

 We want to get back to the top of the table, back on our perch, but it has to happen a step at a time. In modern Premier League football teams simply don't leap from seventh to first, nobody suddenly one season manages thirty more points than they did at the previous attempt. Brendan Rodgers needs to move us up three places and approximately twelve points. Only once that step has been taken can he consider the next step of targeting another league title.

 Much has been made of our lack of victories against the top six teams this season but I'm not totally convinced it's as important as it has been made out to be. We have dropped vital points in winnable games and I think that has cost us more. If we'd won at Southampton and Reading, at home to West Ham and beaten West Brom home and away (all games we went into as favourites) we would have finished in the top four. 

 We are capable of getting the number of points needed to achieve our short term goal of returning to European football's big stage, we just need to turn it on week in week out and let the belief build within the squad. We have no European football next season and we simply have to take advantage of this. We have to turn it into a positive and use the free midweeks to prepare properly for every game no matter who the opponent is. Chelsea have played 69 competitive matches this season, we have 38 plus the domestic cups next season. Taking advantage of having fewer games than the other contenders is something that we cannot fail at. 

 Next season may be bigger for Liverpool than any of us realise, it's our best opportunity for a while to climb back up the table. For me if we don't get top four next season then serious questions will have to be asked. I don't mean I'm expecting it, I just mean that if we can't make it when the fixture list is on our side then we may need to re-evaluate our approach. I have faith and our manager has my full support, let's just hope we deliver.