Steven Gerrard has scored 149 goals in 581 appearances for Liverpool PA Photos

Steven Gerrard believes Brendan Rodgers’ new-look Liverpool side will finish in the top four next season.

Kenny Dalglish was sacked by Liverpool’s owners in May after the Merseyside outfit suffered a dramatic drop in form which resulted in an eighth-place finish.

Former Swansea City manager Rodgers succeeded Dalglish at Anfield, and the 39-year-old has been tasked with ending Liverpool’s three-year wait to qualify for the Champions League.

“I do think we will get in the top four,” said Gerrard. “I think we will get it. I am confident we will get it.

“I am not being unrealistic. If we can play like we did in a lot of games last season, be clinical and take our chances, I think we will be high up in the table. I do.

“It has got to come. We are Liverpool. We can’t finish eighth. We have got to put that right. We have got to take the criticism for underperforming last year.

“We can’t be doing post-match interviews saying ‘we should have got the points or we were not clinical enough’. We have got to be clinical. We have got to get the points we should get.

“I don’t think it’s ever happened that a team has gone from eighth to first, but there are still other big targets for us to achieve short-term. Getting in that top four again is certainly the priority.”

Gerrard also defended Liverpool’s performances last season, with the Reds captain admitting the Anfield outfit were guilty of wasting chances and failing to pick up maximum points in games which they dominated.

“I thought we were brilliant at times in the league, it’s just that we never got out of games what we deserved,” he added.

“Don’t get me wrong, though, I’m not going to sit here and make excuses. There were times when we murdered teams. We just hadn’t come off with with what we deserved.

“But there were other times you would come off thinking no wonder we are sixth, seventh and eighth in the league.

“We hadn’t played well enough. It was frustrating but if you look at the season as a whole, you can’t use an excuse for finishing eighth. It wasn’t good enough.”