The main and root of all problems are definitely the owners and their lack of investment.
Under these two yanks, Rafa did make poor signings or throw alot of money on average players but that's because he was in the rebuilding process in his first few, probably five years. So, surely he's had to pay money and he had very little choice but to go for quantity and not the best quality. For example, he probably let go 2-3 players a summer and it's probably too risky to actually buy one. (You lose three, and gain one). Also, with the rate how Chelsea, Real Madrid, Man United and now Man City inflate prices, it was not easy to replace those 2-3 or even one player with a player(s) of better quality.
Without going too much into that part of the topic, this then leads to probably a weaker bench and if the main starting eleven suffers any kind of problems (injuries, suspensions and etc.), their replacements can't do their job effectively and as a result, our performances and subsequently results, suffer. This not only effect those, but probably the mentality of the players as well.
Obviously, the manager and the players have to take the blame as well but there's just so much a manager can do and for the players, not easy because expectations will always be high because they are representing the biggest club in the world. Whether they are fit to represent Liverpool FC, is another story.
In short, if we had no ownership and investment issues, there probably would be much, MUCH happier squad and everything else will look better and this article probably won't be here!
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