Rodgers uses Kane, Salah to hit back at Liverpool critics

Matt Stead

Brendan Rodgers has hit back at critics who claim his Liverpool success was all down to Luis Suarez.

Rodgers was sacked by Liverpool in October 2015 but had almost delivered a maiden Premier League title to Anfield little over a year prior.

The Reds finished second in the 2013/14 season having led the table in its final throes, but not even Suarez’s 31-goal haul could inspire them past Manchester City.

Suarez was named Premier League Player of the Season and won the Golden Boot, but Rodgers insists his impact was simply the same as Harry Kane’s for Tottenham, or even Mohamed Salah’s at his old club.

“People said, ‘Well, he had Luis Suarez’. I thought that was very discourteous, mainly to the rest of the players, because we had created a team and we had one team and it had one brain,” he told the Daily Mail.

“Luis was the focal point of it but he will tell you himself that he couldn’t have done that without the adjustments of the others.

“If you equate what was said about me with what might be said about a foreign coach, then as an example Mauricio Pochettino has done a great job at Tottenham but they probably wouldn’t say, ‘It’s down to Harry Kane’.

“And it is the same with Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool with the contribution of Mo Salah. But for a British coach, there always has to be a catch.”