It’s been a long and at times arduous season for us Liverpool fans. After the unparalleled joy of almost our entire 2013-14 campaign, this season has represented something of a nasty reality-check, one that has all left us questioning what might be next for Brendan Rodgers and co.
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There have been positives – most notably a 13 game unbeaten Premier League run at the start of 2015, which propelled us back into Champions League contention – but ultimately we’ve been left empty-handed, with Steven Gerrard’s big send-off ending with a humiliating 6-1 defeat at the hands of Stoke City.
In the list below, we analyse ten of the biggest talking points this season, and consider the lessons learned:
10) Luis Suarez is irreplaceable
We all knew life was going to be difficult without him. How do you replace a strike who scored 31 Premier League goals last season? Unfortunately, we tried to do it with Mario Balotelli, Rickie Lambert and Fabio Borini. That was never really going to work. It’s not just the goals the mercurial Uruguayan brought to our team – it was his work-rate, his commitment, his unfathomable ability to create something out of nothing. He was, and is, magic.
9) Mignolet’s made of stern, strong stuff
It’s strange to look back over the season and see how our perspective on certain players has shifted over the weeks and months. Back in December, you’d have struggled to find a Liverpool fan not hoping we were going to sign a new goalkeeper in the January transfer window. Mignolet had been dropped in favour of Brad Jones and his Liverpool career looked over. Fast forward six months, and he’s kept 14 Premier League clean-sheets. Only Manchester City’s Joe Hart has kept more.
8) Daniel Sturridge is made of glass
We all feared it might happen – Luis Suarez’s departure was going to make Sturridge crucial to our hopes of a top four finish – and ultimately the fact that he’s started just seven Premier League games has probably cost us. A string of injuries, which have included thigh, hamstring and hip problems, have proved highly frustrating for both player and club and left us with a mountain to climb. We can only hope that his most recent surgery has solved some underlying issues.
7) Philippe Coutinho has endless potential
Liverpool’s Player of the Season, Players’ Player of the Season, winner of the Performance of the Year and Goal of the Season awards, included in the PFA Team of the Year and Brazil’s Copa America squad… it’s been a near-perfect year for Coutinho, at least as an individual. The midfield wizard has been utterly sensational at times, with his eight goals and eight assists in all competitions simply not doing justice to his brilliance. He’s only 22 and you have to wonder where he could be in three of four years time.
6) Southampton don’t hold all the answers
It’s probably fair to say that we got carried away last summer. Signing three players from the same club was always going to be risky… How could we expect all of them to continue that same level of performance? But ultimately Adam Lallana, Rickie Lambert and Dejan Lovren have all somewhat underperformed. Lallana has been held back by fitness issues but did at least look more like his old self towards the end of the season. Lambert didn’t fit the system and wasn’t given enough games, while Lovren struggled to recover from a very poor start – and did not live up to his £20m price-tag.
5) The young players aren’t the only way forward
A lot of the old guard are going to be on their way out this summer. Kolo Toure has signed a new contract, but the likes of Steven Gerrard, Glen Johnson and Brad Jones are going to be going (via the Liverpool Echo). That’s going to place an even greater importance on our young guns – the likes of Coutinho, as well as Emre Can, Alberto Moreno and Jordon Ibe, who all have to step up next season and help fill that void. What’s important is that we don’t just replace our experience with more youngsters. Everyone is itching to see the likes of Jerome Sinclair and Sheyi Ojo playing more regularly but their time might have to wait for now.
4) We don’t know our best formation, and our attacking ideas are tired
It became a little stale and predictable at times this season. That wasn’t completely down to Rodgers – it’s hard to be inventive when you don’t have a single striker that you trust to play through the middle. The introduction of the 3-4-3 formation was a positive step forward, and one that really helped us pick up some momentum during the early part of 2015, but ultimately that was also worked out by our opponents. The rotation of Raheem Sterling and Philippe Coutinho in the false nine role wasn’t working and there didn’t seem to be a Plan B. And even after going back to the 4-3-3, or whatever variation of it we chose, it was still stale.
3) The addition of Champions League football really does affect league form
We shouldn’t lose sight of the burden our return to playing Champions League football place on our squad. The addition of another six fixtures (eight if you include the Europa League), pushed a side still lacking in strength in depth to the very limits. In the final weeks of the season, with the games against the likes of Crystal Palace and Stoke City, you could really see the tiredness starting to creep in. The guys already had one eye on their holidays and part of me doesn’t really blame them for that.
2) Raheem Sterling can be… frustrating
He was brilliant last season – playing alongside Suarez and Sturridge – and many people thought it would be Sterling, rather than Coutinho, who would make the biggest strides during the 2014-15 campaign. And so it proved during the early part of the year, when he was comfortably our stand-out player. Unfortunately, his form has waned badly during the last couple of months. He clearly hasn’t been helped by the contract saga currently surrounding him (via BBC Sport). He’s constantly hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons and that’s unfortunately taken away from his incredible talent.
1) This summer is going to be absolutely crucial
Whether it’s Christian Benteke, Danny Ings, Charlie Austin, or anyone else, we all know that Brendan Rodgers is on the hunt for more signings this summer (via the Evening Standard). The strikeforce is clearly due a major revamp while, in an ideal world, we’d also love replacements for Gerrard in midfield, Johnson at full-back, and Jones in goal. At least five signings seem like a must, while we’d go as far as to say we need eight new players.
