Liverpool fans will be worried that last season’s second place finish just might have been a bit of a fluke, and will be worried that the club will miss the contribution Luis Suarez made with his 30-goals and 12-assists.
Defender Glen Johnson however points to the start of last season when Suarez was still serving a 10-match ban for biting Chelsea’s Branislav Ivanovic telling the Daily Express: “It gets overlooked that we played the first six games of last season (the other four games were at the end of previous season) without Luis and made a fantastic start so we can clearly win without Luis.”
“Any team that loses a player like Luis is going to feel it. But we will carry on the way we do, creating chances. I think we were the team who created the most chances last season, we’ve signed some good strikers and I’m sure once they get a chance they will take it.”
He added: “We were definitely fresher for not playing Europe last season. And the size of the squad we had last season we probably could not have coped with all the extra games. It was probably an advantage last year.
“We’re going to have a lot more games this season but we’ve got a stronger squad now and hopefully we can keep everyone fit and keep fighting.
“Expectations will be high after last season and it might be a problem reining a few people in but I think as long as we play the way we did and fight the way we did last season then I’m sure we’ll be happy. We want to fight for the title as much as the fans want us to.
“At the moment we are just concentrating on pre-season and getting through it with as few injuries as possible. We’ve been playing some good football in pre-season although we are not 100 per cent fit yet.
“Once we’ve finished pre-season preparations we’ll concentrate on the Premier League.”
Johnson also feels that Manchester United will once again pose a threat under new manager Louis van Gaal saying:
“Obviously they didn’t have a great year last year when not much went there way,” he said. “But I’m pretty sure Van Gaal will settle the ship, get what he wants out of his players and I’m sure they will be a lot tougher to beat this year.”
