The former Liverpool and England defender joins our team of experts alongside the likes of Gary Neville, Jamie Redknapp and Graeme Souness for a season where you can watch 116 live Barclays Premier League matches, more than ever before, in HD and on mobile and tablet devices only with Sky Sports.

As we count down to the new campaign, Jamie shared some of his thoughts on how some of the big clubs are shaping up.

Read on for his thoughts on the situation at his former club Liverpool, their summer transfer dealings and their expectations for 2013/14.

It's going to be tough for Liverpool. It's been tough in the last few years.

When I was playing and we were in our prime, we were almost guaranteed to be nailed on for the top four, but with the emergence of Tottenham and the money at Man City it changed around and Liverpool fell victim to that.

It's important that Liverpool get back into the top four or certainly make a better fist of it than they have in the last two or three years; I'm sure Brendan Rodgers is well aware of that and is looking to get players in early.

That was problem towards then end of the window last season with the Clint Dempsey fiasco and the manager will be looking to get his business done early.

Liverpool can't be happy finishing fifth or sixth or seventh. It's got to be about getting back in the top four or making a better challenge of it than they have in the last few years.

The manager seems to be looking at the Sunderland goalkeeper Simon Mignolet, who has been the North East player of the year in the last couple of years, and Henrikh Mkhitaryan from Shakhtar Donetsk who looks like a good player who's done well in the last couple of years.

Is he signing enough experience? I think the Kolo Toure signing shows he's going for experience, but whether a player is young or old, experienced or not experienced, it's about how well you play on the pitch.

If you've got an experienced player who is also a good player, that's a great help obviously, but he could go out and buy two or three experienced players who aren't very good and there's no point in that.

You need good footballers at the club. There's been a lot of talk that the owners have certain requirements in terms of age and profile, but I think that's the same at almost every club. A lot of players want to buy players who are 22 or 23 because they'll get a lot of years out of them. That's not rocket science.

They've got experienced players there; Steven Gerrard, Daniel Agger, Pepe Reina, Glen Johnson, Lucas Leiva, Martin Skrtel. Those are experienced players who have been at Liverpool for a long time and know what the club's about.

Liverpool's problem last season was playing the top sides at times. They were called flat-track bullies for the results they got, but if they can take those results into the first five or six games then it will put them in a good position.

If Luis Suarez stays he can hopefully come back in against the so-called bigger sides after his ban and if they can improve the head-to-heads they are going to be challenging.

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