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A new season is upon us (finally) and for us Liverpool fans, it’s as exciting as ever.  Well, that’s if you look past our preseason.  After starting off to a flyer in Asia, Liverpool have failed to pick up a win in their last three attempts, and have given up 15 goals across five games.  Not exactly the solidarity we Kopites wanted to see.  Nonetheless, mistakes are supposed to be made in preseason, that’s what it is there for.  With Kick-Off 2011 less than three weeks away, and Sunderland lying in the wake, Liverpool will have to step up their game to make the running start they have hyped themselves up for.

A lot of talk has circulated around Liverpool as being title contenders, but painfully I still believe we are not quite there.  Sure, in my heart I am going to pull for Liverpool to win the league every year, and that’s how it should be.  But Manchester United have quickly built on an already strong team and Manchester City continue to jam their squad list with big money signings.  Granted, Liverpool have done their own buisness this season, though have failed to get rid of the deadwood that has poisoned the club’s depth for years.  There is still close to a month left for players to leave and come in, but every fan knows the closer you get to a transfer window deadline, the heftier the prices of players become.

After watching Liverpool’s preseason with a little more of a “scouts eye” this summer, it is easy to see our weakness.  Left back has been and still is a problem.  John Flanagan is a fantastic prospect, and will develop into a great defender.  However, Liverpool cannot afford to rely on a 17 year old over the course of the most gruelling campaign in football.  Martin Kelly plays great at right-back, but the man is Liverpool’s future center-back and captain, no doubt.  This season would be a good one to see him alongside Jamie Carragher (who better than Jamie to mold a defender?)  Daniel Agger showed why Liverpool have continued to hold onto him through injury in Liverpool’s last outing, scoring two goals and making some crunching challenges, but it’s his proneness to injury that worries me the most.

Stewart Downing has shown great promise over his few appearances, and it’s only a matter of time before the article is finished for our No. 19 and we have a world-class winger on our hands.  Liverpool may still need to look at Arda Turan as a cheaper right winger to push Kuyt up front with either Luis Suarez or Andy Carroll, as the pair will surely take some knocks this campaign.  Suarez style of play will attract the knock here and there but Kuyt showed at the end of last campaign he is fully capable playing as striker (7 yard hattrick anyone?).

Now that it’s down to the final stretch of preseason, it’s prediction time.  At the beginning of the summer I gave my verdict on the League’s top six, and I predicted Liverpool would finish in a close second behind my predicted league winners Manchester United.  My heart wants me to keep Liverpool in that second spot prediction but in all honesty it will be an all out war for fourth with Arsenal, who are more than struggling in the transfer window this summer.  No European campaign as a distraction should be enough to fire the Reds up the table and back into Europe where the Reds will belong.  What the team cannot afford to do is buy into any hype that comes with a good run of form.  In 2008 Liverpool found themselves atop the table after Christmas, but quickly fell out of their blistering form following talk of winning the league.  The Reds must focus on the task at hand, and that is simply getting back into Europe.

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