Brendan Rodgers has described Liverpool’s 6-1 defeat by Stoke City as his worst day in football and conceded he needs to regain supporters’ trust as a consequence of that mauling.
Liverpool begin their Premier League campaign on Sunday back at the stadium where 77 days previously they suffered the club’s heaviest defeat for 52 years. Rodgers survived an end-of-season review with the owners, Fenway Sports Group, unlike the assistant manager Colin Pascoe and first-team coach Mike Marsh, and has again been backed heavily in the transfer market this summer, but he says his standing with Liverpool fans has been damaged by the events of last season.
The Liverpool manager has set Champions League qualification as a primary target for this campaign after spending about £80m on seven players. Earning the Kop’s confidence, Rodgers accepts, is another.
Asked whether he was back to square one with those supporters who were sceptical of his appointment from Swansea City in 2012, Rodgers replied: “Probably, yes. I never take for granted the support I have had here but I also understand the disappointment of last year. I’m sure after a game like Stoke there was huge disappointment, but I have always been the one to take responsibility and, rightly so, the anger goes towards the manager and I accept that.
“I need to regain their trust again. It has been an incredible journey since I came in here and it is an absolute privilege to manage this club with the supporters we have behind us, but you have to do well to earn that support and I need to earn that again.”
A swift return to the Britannia Stadium represents “the perfect fixture” for Liverpool, according to their manager, who insists last season’s scars have strengthened his determination to return honours to Anfield. But he said the last visit to Stoke resulted in the lowest point of his career.
“That was my worst day in football by a long way,” Rodgers said. “I have watched the game again and it was very difficult to sit through. The identity of what you stand for, in terms of organisation and commitment and fight – forget quality, forget talent – you have got to be able to fight and you have to be hard to beat. You have to do the basics well. All those elements of football, we failed in.
“It was very difficult afterwards, as you can imagine. I had planned to go and see my son play [for Swindon Town in the League One play-off final]. That didn’t take place and, as we all know, family is important. But more importantly than that, we let down a group of people who had supported us amazingly. I couldn’t do anything else but get my head down, get on the bus and get home. I got back and reflected on it and a couple of nights later I had to be out at the LMA awards dinner. It certainly hurt for a few weeks. But it allowed me to go away and define how I wanted to move the club forward again.”
Rodgers described his decision to release Pascoe and Marsh at the end of last season as “probably the most difficult” he has taken in management. But he is confident he retains the support of FSG and believes it would have been harsh had the owners opted for a new manager this summer.
“I suppose it is how you judge it, really,” he said of surviving the end-of-season review. “If you look at my second season here, we nearly win the league. If you judge me on that then maybe I deserve a bit more time. If you judge me on budget, we are in the top five and we finished sixth and we end up disappointed. Maybe it might be different but the owners have always put big trust in me from the first day I came in here. I have confidence in how I work. It [the 6-1] certainly didn’t take away from my beliefs in my work but it sharpened that I needed to refocus and how we could take the club forward. I’m as driven now – if not more – as the first day I came in here.”
