Despite losing Luis Suarez to Barcelona, Liverpool went into the 2014-15 season armed with optimism and Champions League football.

Fans anticipated marquee signings and more legendary European nights at Anfield, as the Reds returned to European football’s biggest stage thanks to their second-place finish the season before.

What they got was something very different.

There were timid performances in Europe, even at home to the likes of Ludogorets, but especially at home to Real Madrid, as the side slumped out of the Champions League at the group stages.

They then dropped out of the Europa League just as quickly as they fell into it.

Regardless of personnel changes, Brendan Rodgers’s Liverpool were unrecognisable next to the team they were the season before.

Gone were the intense attacking displays which had seen them score 101 league goals in the last campaign and in their stead were sluggish, uninspiring, error-strewn performances which only managed to muster 52 goals.

A glimmer of hope came midway through the season, when Rodgers implemented a new 3-4-2-1 formation which turned the team’s fortunes around, albeit temporarily.

Philippe Coutinho was lighting up games with tricky dribbling, intelligent passing and a new-found eye for goal, while Emre Can, Jordan Henderson and Mamadou Sakho were beginning to show signs that the club might have leadership post-Gerrard and Carragher.

A run of 13 games without defeat saw the optimism return.

But, with a top-four finish on the horizon, the team fell at the final hurdle.

A defeat to Manchester United at Anfield was followed by another loss away at Arsenal — the very teams which Liverpool were competing with for the top-four places.

Around the same time, a trip to Wembley to face Aston Villa in the semi-final of the FA Cup ended in an unlikely defeat, as yet again the players fell short in an important game.

Despite these troubles, the Reds were still in with a reasonable shout of securing a top four place and a slip up from Manchester United, who won only one of their last six games, presented a chance to claim fourth spot.

However, Liverpool also won only one of their last six games, as a draw away at West Brom, a loss at Hull City and another defeat at home to Crystal Palace had apparently consigned them to fifth place.

This was until one of the worst Liverpool performances in recent memory, a 6-1 defeat at Stoke, saw them drop to sixth.

It was supposed to be a celebratory farewell for Steven Gerrard but the Liverpool legend, and one of their best-ever players, ended his time at the club on that miserable afternoon in the Potteries, scoring his side’s solitary goal as his teammates wilted around him.