Liverpool Need to Make the Right Summer Choices After Backing Brendan Rodgers

Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers met with club chairman Tom Werner and director Michael Gordon on Tuesday afternoon, with talks described as "positive, good and productive," as reported by the Telegraph's Chris Bascombe.

Bascombe and fellow Liverpool journalists reported how Werner, Gordon and Rodgers performed an end-of-season review and formulated a "comprehensive plan for improvement"—all within just two hours.

After a season that saw Rodgers fail to deliver any of the club's targets (a top-four finish, a domestic trophy and progress from their group in the Champions League), surely a review and plan for the future would require a far lot more than two hours of the chairman's time.

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Quite how a two-hour meeting can be described as comprehensive is further bafflement from the Anfield hierarchy.

Of course, discussions will have taken place away from the city centre meeting via phone, but the proclaimed end-of-season review meeting itself seems to have been nothing more than a PR move to show supporters that the owners (or one of them, at least) has spoken to Rodgers about his failings.

The outcome has left a divided fanbase, with many speculating that the reason for Rodgers remaining in charge is because Fenway Sports Group were unable to replace him with a higher-calibre manager such as Jurgen Klopp or Carlo Ancelotti.

Alas, Rodgers will be Liverpool boss at the start of the new season. Quite how long he survives remains to be seen.

One way he'll survive a lot longer would be if he and the club actually make changes for the future.

Bascombe writes that, following the meeting, "it remains to be seen if there will be any changes to personnel behind the scenes." Ian Herbert of The Independent noted: "Rodgers has signed up to plans which have been laid for an improvement," adding that "how radical those plans are remains unclear."

Experienced coaching staff

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Herbert suggests: "Possible changes to the way Liverpool go about the new season may also include the recruitment of an experienced individual to work alongside Rodgers."

Last November, former Manchester United assistant manager Rene Meulensteen told BBC Radio 5 Live that "Rodgers's biggest failure is that he's not invested in his staff."

As previously explained for Bleacher Report, Rodgers, his assistant manager Colin Pascoe, his first-team coach Mike Marsh and goalkeeper coach John Achterberg are seriously lacking in experience. Rodgers and Pascoe had just one season of Premier League experience when they were appointed, Marsh had none, while Achterberg was initially a temporary appointment under Kenny Dalglish's reign.

None of them had experience in their current roles at a Champions League level.

"He [Rodgers] has obviously got people around him who he obviously thinks are the right ones," said Meulensteen. "But I think he could have done with someone who has been there, seen it and done it."

Meulensteen certainly has a valid point.

Behind every successful manager is a highly regarded assistant and/or coaching team. Liverpool's certainly lacks experience of the big occasion—perhaps there's no wonder the team itself have bottled every big game under Rodgers' reign.

"It could be argued that those in his own management team are acolytes and that he could be challenged more," writes Herbert.

Without a doubt, Rodgers would benefit from an experienced coaching staff around him; somebody to question why on earth he is playing Emre Can as some sort of false right-back despite the German being clearly uncomfortable there; someone to question why he changed the formation four times in one match; or someone to point out that, actually, Mario Balotelli isn't a lone centre-forward.

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The romantic addition here would be Jamie Carragher—a passionate Liverpool person who has played in the biggest games in Europe and at home, who knows the club inside out and can put some fight into Liverpool's fragile squad that currently goes missing when the going gets tough.

A director of football

This is the one change that supporters are increasingly calling for, more so as FSG and John Henry's actual involvement with the club seemingly decreases.

When Werner and Gordon sat down with Rodgers to discuss the season, quite who is qualified to actually question the Northern Irishman? We're talking about people who knew very little of football, let alone Liverpool FC last time the club were seriously challenging for major honours on a regular occasion.

Liverpool's hierarchy, like its coaching staff, lack experience in football, not to mention top European football.

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It is a huge concern to supporters.

FSG appointed Damien Comolli to the role shortly after they purchased the club, and while Comolli made mistakes, at least then they acknowledged the need for an experienced football person to help run the club for them.

Plans to appoint a new sporting director were shelved when Rodgers refused to work with one upon his appointment in 2012. The much-discussed transfer committee was instead established.

That committee idea is one that is admirable in its concept but impractical in reality. Who, exactly, is responsible for the failings of the transfer committee? Where is the accountability?

Who sanctioned spending £20 million on Dejan Lovren? Why wasn't there a plan in place for when Luis Suarez departed? And who failed to realise that, despite spending £107 million, not one signing remotely replaced Suarez?

Rodgers

Rodgers will have his work cut out to regain the trust of supporters still angry at the abysmal end to the 2014/15 season, which fell to pieces after the manager got carried away and proclaimed that Liverpool could finish as high as second.

Two months later, his side had put in an abject display at Wembley to be knocked out of the FA Cup semi-final and taken just eight points from the final nine games—conceding nine goals to mid-table opposition in the final two games of the season.

Somehow Rodgers has survived the sack and must now re-establish control. He must acknowledge the need for help in his backroom, and he must find a regular formation and style of play.

Liverpool and Rodgers need an established signing that will bring some positivity to the club this summer.