Not at all, you can only comment on what you see, who is to say Everton and Newcastle have'nt underperformed last season like we have, who is to say they cant be so much better than last season too, so your argument is flawed. You seem to think it's only Liverpool who had a bad season, what if that team peaked about 2 or 3 seasons ago and is on it's way down, if thats the case the way we performed last season might be as good as we are anyway.
I look at our rivals player for player against what we have, I think Spurs are considerably better, Newcastle slightly better with more match winners and as I say nothing between us an Everton, thats just the way I see it.

I agree Spurs are quite a bit better and will replace modric with moutinhio who is an excellent player, just wait to see if he adapts to the premier league. Vertohngen is an excellent signing, and I'm sure they will bring another forward in. They are going to strengthen and are already better than us. They seem to be strengthening with better players than we are linked with as well.

I don't think Newcastle have a better team than us at all. They are just better balanced, hopefully rodgers can rectify this. If he does then our team sheet is quite comfortably better. Newcastle might be just as good, but I have seen many teams, plenty better than newcastle, have players that have a great first season then capitulate. That can quite easily happen.

Everton on a par with us? Don't know where you got thaat from but I very strongly disagree.

I agree with MBIR. Newcastle are very solid but they aren't world class. They have a balanced unit that plays well together, but I don't their better players (Ba, Cisse, Cabaye, Tiote, Coloccini ) are really on the level of Suarez, Gerrard, Agger, or Lucas. Everton is similar only with much less to work with. It could go either way with Spurs, but I still think AVB is suspect. Again, as I said before, I think Spurs will finish above us, but I think that will largely depend on Rodgers and AVB, and could change.

If you look at the last few seasons we have only finished about 3 or 4 points ahead of Everton and last season they finished ahead of us this to me suggests there is absolutely nothing between us. Newcastle at the moment are better, they have a better goalkeeper than the Reina we see now, I think our defence is better than theres but I would say they have a better more balanced midfield than us, I also think there is more goals in Ben Arfa, Ba and Cisse than whats in Carroll, Suarez and Downing so they will win more games. Its all about opinions tho, this season should tell us whose right or wrong, we first need to stop the slide as we are currently in the bottom three worse teams form wise since January.

New season, new players, new tactics, new manager. Its time for you to stop talking about this slide ford focus.

On spurs, I think they are currently not willing to meet Portos asking price for Moutinho so will be interesting to see how they get on this season under AVB

Yeah I am also interested to see how BR approaches that problem, can he have them play keep ball, pass ball and move up as a unit, playing a high line without conceding to breakaway's? At this remove and thinking of last season's performance's, it's almost like making a silk purse from a sow's ear! So yes LFC, it will be interesting.

The Club is firmly in a slide until we see otherwise, Just because a new manager comes in does'nt mean the slide has finished, we have to see evidence first, our last competative game was against Swansea which we lost. I hope like everyone hopes that Brendan Rogers can turn us around in an ideal world he can turn us back into the top 5 or 6 team we used to be, but it's going to take time and hardwork.

Don't agree Ford I think we underachieved both under Hodgson and Dalglish. With a decent manager we have a reasonable change of 4th. Is Rodgers that manager? we wait and see.

well if we underachieved like you stanley so did Newcastle and Everton and most other Clubs, saying we underachieved is a cheap cop out all teams fans use to hide there teams incompetence. I happen to think Liverpool Club and team are on it's way down, the Club has Owners which for me are indecisive and if you look at the team we had say 5 seasons ago with good Torres, Alonso, Mascherano,Sissoko, big Sami, Reina, Carragher and Gerrard with players like Crouch, Arbeloa, Garcia, John Arne e.t.c. and look at the players we have now Gerrard well past his best, Carragher about to draw his pension, Downing, Henderson, Spearing, Charlie Adam and Reina who went stale then there is no comparason, our only leading lights are Agger if we can manage to keep him fit, Skirtel who is decent at most and a young Raheem Sterling this is definately a Club and team on the slide stanley so I dont agree with underachieve like you suggest .

Yes fair points our squad is nothing like it was 5 to 6 years ago. Maybe we are doomed.