Barnes: League Liverpool’s aim

Liverpool’s season should be judged on their Premier League finishing position rather than any cup success, says John Barnes.

After taking up the Liverpool reins in October 2015, Jurgen Klopp led the Reds to the finals of the Capital One Cup and Europa League last season, but an eighth-place finish in the Premier League means they will not be competing in Europe in 2016/17.  

Liverpool finished 21 points behind champions Leicester City last season and Barnes says they must close the gap to the country’s best this campaign.

“A success for me, with every team, is how well you do in the league,” the former Liverpool winger told Sky Sports. “If you win the Europa League but finish 10th in the league, is that success? Not to me it’s not. If you win the League Cup but finish 10th in the league, is that success? It’s not.

“If Liverpool finish third but don’t win a trophy or get to a final, that would be more successful. The quality of a team is shown over a period of time, which is the season. In a cup you can be lucky.

“The aim for Liverpool this season should be pushing up the league and challenging. We’d like to challenge to win the league but we finished eighth last year so you can’t say ‘unless we finish second or third it’s not success’. But as long as we’re moving in the direction and we’re competitive in every game we play and coming into April we are still not far off the top of the league, that’s success.

“I wouldn’t put them under pressure to say ‘unless we finish in the top four it’s not success’ because we could finish fifth and be six points off first or fourth and 30 points off …

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