Didn't FSG tell Rodgers that CL qualification wasn't a priority for the new season?
Yes. They want to be competitive with those challenging though.
I think you and I will be competing neck and neck for a Europa league spot, but the CL spots are out of our price range and I don't think you'll get there in B-Rod's first year either.
What I'm actually more interested in is if Newcastle and Liverpool will go all out in the cups or if we'll just play reserve sides and go out to Portsmouth's ghost.
As do I. I think the only hope we can have of Champions League is if Spurs fall under AVB, which is a completely fluid situation as of right now. There are so many uncertainties in terms of being able to predict how teams will do next season. It has to be said that Liverpool were doing, steadily, quite well up until Christmas and the drop in form following it wasn't down to any inherent lack of quality in the actual squad, but just a combination of debilitating factors, like shit finishing and various players performing below a certain level.
Our form went shit when Lucas went out, and Suarez got banned. And it snowballed from there. We outplayed the best teams last year, even if we didn't put them to the sword, but at times I thought we were tactically naive both in setup and team selection.
If you look at Spurs, they benefitted from going out of the Europa League early, and it'd be naive to suggest they could've maintained the same sort of league form if their first team squad were playing a game in Belarus the previous Thursday. I think we've got a deeper squad than Newcastle, but I don't expect either of us to go that far, as we're both aiming to do most of our good work in the league.