Former Liverpool striker Michael Owen feels Brendan Rodgers deserves a chance to manage the Reds for one more season.

Liverpool finished their season with a 6-1 drubbing at the hands of Stoke City, which saw them drop down to sixth in the Premier League table behind Tottenham, despite Rodgers spending over £100m on new players last summer.




Many believe that the Stoke City result has increased the pressure on Rodgers and he will be under duress to save his job when he travels to Boston in the next few weeks to talk to the club owners.

Owen admits Rodgers did make mistakes in the transfer window last summer but feels the loss of Luis Suarez coupled with Daniel Sturridge’s injury problems exacerbated the problems for Liverpool at the start of the season.
 


“Poor signings, a lot of poor signings”, Owen told BT Sport, when asked why Liverpool have struggled.

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“But they lost Suarez and also had their next main striker out all season.”

However, he was quick to remind critics that Rodgers did make some changes in the middle of the season that had some positive effects on their form and Liverpool went on a long unbeaten run.

Owen feels last season’s performance and his pedigree as a good coach should be taken into consideration while deciding his future and believes Rodgers deserves one more season to get things right at Liverpool.

“Then they had a very poor start to the season, trying to find their way, but in the middle part of their season they showed title winning form; not Champions League qualification form, but league winning form.

“Even though everything was going wrong around him in the first dozen games, he found a system to play; changed to three at the back and they went on a great run.

“I can’t defend his signings but I think he is a very good coach and just for what he did last season he deserves another year.”

Liverpool finished with 62 points, 22 fewer than last season’s tally. While they scored 101 goals last term, only 52 hit the back of the net this time around.

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