Brendan Rodgers vows Liverpool will improve after underwhelming start to the season

Brendan Rodgers has put Liverpool’s slow start to the season down to so many changes being made over the summer.

Liverpool’s 10th Premier League game of the season saw them slump to an uninspiring 1-0 defeat at Newcastle Utd on Saturday afternoon, which leaves Rodgers’ side seventh in the table on Saturday night.

The Reds have claimed just 14 points from their opening 10 games after finishing second in the league last year and Rodgers admits he can understand why supporters may be becoming frustrated.

"The progress this season is; we're going to be a slow process because there was so many changes," he said.

"We haven't started how we would like but we will improve.

"I think we showed that in the period when I first came here after six months.

"Understandably for the supporters it will be a difficult period for them but we can only continue to work hard and we'll analyse today's game – it was fairly straightforward.

"We didn't create enough. We had enough of the ball, we had enough of the possession, found it in good areas, we just didn't create enough in the final third and then we gave away a very bad goal to lose the game 1-0.

"We'll just continue to work and work as well as we have done over the past couple of years and we're confident we'll get the results."

Mario Balotelli is still searching for his first Premier League goal for Liverpool and caused a minor controversy after emerging very late for the second-half kick-off but Rodgers said: "It has no bearing at all on the result."

PA