In-depth: Where does Brendan Rodgers go after 6-1 humiliation?

Brendan Rodgers has had a hard time of things recently. The Liverpool boss started the season by warning Champions League winning manager, Louis van Gaal, that he’d be surprised by just how tough the Premier League would be. This was a follow-up to a much earlier statement telling Spurs that having spent £100 million in the transfer window after selling Gareth Bale, they really should be looking at challenging for the title. He then received about £100 million pounds to spend in the summer after selling Luis Suarez to Barcelona.

Unfortunately for Brendan, as he is called by supporters when he’s in their good books, he made a right hash of this season. The defence is no closer to being fixed, Steven Gerrard was not properly replaced as he should have been last season, and Gerrard's self-regard was allowed to cloud the second half of the season once he announced his retirement. Rodgers had a brief ascent up the table when he switched to three at the back - and transparently ‘anonymously’ briefed journalists about his quiet genius in deciding to do such a thing. All that culminated in an end of season collapse, losing to Manchester United at Anfield, against last year’s tormentors Crystal Palace, and then an emphatic, hilarious, 6-1 defeat to Stoke City yesterday. His job has gone from one of the safest in the league to one up for debate.

“I've always said that if the owners want me to go, then I go. It's as simple as that. But I still feel I've got a lot to offer the club. A lot has happened this year which has made the job difficult. Last season, when things were working well, we had the support of everyone but performances like today do not help that and I fully understand that. With Raheem, there has been a lot going over the past number of weeks, and I felt there were other players mentally positioned to play in the game.

"We are all embarrassed by that today. We have to be much better than that. They (the fans) deserve an apology. They were angry at half time - and rightly so - because that was awful, absolutely awful.The only way you'll get support from them is by winning games, and we haven't won enough games. They have every right to be angry and frustrated and of course I take full responsibility for that as the manager."

Stop talking as if he invented football and is revolutionising the sport from top to bottom after each win. He’s obviously a talented coach - he took a squad far farther than looked possible in 2013/14, even if that was obviously aided by Suarez’s world class performances and relatively good discipline - and he plays enjoyable, attacking football based on short passing and technical ability. But he has his limits: the defence is still appalling, his transfers aren’t good enough, and if he is blaming the committee, then he hasn’t worked effectively enough with them, which is a huge part of his job.

All these are common problems for coaches, but Rodgers needs to start managing them, and expectations, better. Liverpool are about the fifth or sixth best funded side in the league, so more often than not they will finish fifth or sixth. If Rodgers starts to act like that, rather than the second coming of Rinus Michels, he will make his job a lot easier, even if his press coverage would become a little more prosaic.

Tony Evans (The Times): “Brendan Rodgers will take most of the blame for the shambolic end to the season, but the Liverpool manager is a symptom of a wider malaise at the club. Last week, Gary Neville claimed that Anfield needed a “visionary” to revive the place. The arch-enemy of Liverpool fans identified the problem but got things the wrong way round. "There are too many people at and around Liverpool who believe they are visionaries. The end result is you don’t need to be a prophet to see that urgent action is necessary if the club are to compete at the highest level."

David Hytner (The Guardian): “Brendan Rodgers faces a review of Liverpool’s season of frustration with the club’s owners and the manager’s demeanour after this wretched afternoon betrayed realism and, perhaps, a little anxiety – not least when he said that he accepted there would be doubts over his future after this and, more generally, the whimper that has been the final two months of the season.”