You'll have plenty to celebrate when you subscribe to the Liverpool FC newsletter Sign me up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

The nagging fear throughout Liverpool’s thrilling championship challenge could be heard louder than ever during the week.

In the wake of a demoralising defeat to Chelsea came the perceived wisdom this season represents the best chance for the Reds to end a title drought that stretches back to 1990.

Chelsea, Manchester City and Arsenal will all spend big during the summer. Manchester United will be revived.

And hey, even Tottenham Hotspur might win a few games.

Brendan Rodgers, though, is convinced this is just the start for his team.

This won’t be a one-off. Liverpool can go again.

“There’s no doubt we’re on the right track,” says Rodgers, whose side are at Crystal Palace tomorrow evening. “I’ve said all season that we are ahead of schedule and the owners agree with that.

“I believe we are only going to get better, but we are in a position that no-one expected us to be.”

A failure to break through the massed ranks of the Chelsea defence may have wrenched the destiny of the Premier League title out of their hands, but Liverpool have already successfully negotiated their way to a similarly well-guarded goal this season.

Automatic qualification for the group stages of the Champions League was assured a fortnight ago, realising the campaign’s chief target set by principal owner John Henry.

Now, before kicking a ball in Europe’s elite club competition, Rodgers is already drawing up plans to stay there while juggling the unique demands of competing at the top of the Premier League.

“When I signed up for three years, it was in my own mind that we needed to get into the Champions League during that period,” says Rodgers.

“Financially, the climate changes. So for us to have done it this year is great.

“It’s a competition we want to be in and we know we want to stay in it.

“That’s going to lead to us injecting the squad with quality, we hope, and then continue our journey.

“We’re a young team that’s coming through. We want to keep that going and sustain it.”

The importance of Champions League qualification cannot be understated.

Liverpool’s absence from the competition since 2009 has seen them lose players (Fernando Torres), come close to seeing others leave (Luis Suarez) and detracted potential targets (Henrikh Mkhitaryan).

Fortified by the Reds’ return to the Continent’s top table and armed with funds made available by Fenway Sports Group, Rodgers anticipates a busy – and necessary – summer in the transfer market.

And the Reds boss is convinced leading players will be enticed by the attacking manner in which Liverpool have impressed this season.

“It’s absolutely right to say the squad isn’t big enough,” says Rodgers. “It needs to be improved.

“The owners recognise that as well.

“They have a strategic way of looking at it and my job is to manage that.

“We had the experiences of last summer when, speaking to some players, they respected what we were developing at the club but they wanted to play at the top level.

“I suspect this summer will be a totally different proposition.

“Our style of football is recognised. We have a way of working and a way of playing that in particular top players want to play in, a creative attacking team that wins.

“Hopefully what we have been putting into place over the last couple of seasons prepares us for bringing in this calibre of player and sets us up to have a real crack at the competition.”

Rodgers adds: “We have a great recruitment team here who have been doing work behind the scenes and preparing for quite a while.

“They know the number of players we want and the profile of those players, and it is clear we need an injection of quality at the club this summer.

“We are already working toward that. It is the total opposite of my first summer here when, after the Euros, the players didn’t report back until quite late and I was bringing in new ideas and methods.

“I had no real time to work. This summer, the plans are already in place and new players will be able to come in and know what we’re about because they fit the profile we have.

“It’s hard to define numbers, but it is clear it will have to be something like five or six.”

Having been out of Europe for two of the last three seasons, Liverpool have dropped down UEFA’s coefficient rankings and are almost certain to be in pot three when the Champions League group draw is made later this year.

That will mean being drawn alongside one of the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Atletico Madrid and Benfica from pot one, with the possibility of also being pitted with Juventus, Borussia Dortmund and Paris Saint-Germain from pot two.

Rodgers, though, is nonplussed.

“It’s a big ask to go Champions League and Premier League, but that’s the beauty of it,” he says.

“We won’t worry about who we get (in the draw), we will just enjoy it. Every player, every manager, every club wants to be at the top of the game, and obviously the Champions League is the pinnacle of European club football.

“When I was a young coach coming through, I used to sit on the sides, especially when I was at Chelsea, and watch the flag being shaken in the middle of the field, the music and the whole shebang that comes with it.

“You hope that one day as a manager or a coach you get the opportunity to work at that level. I’ve been around for a lot of years watching that, so the chance to take the club into that for the first time in five years makes me immensely proud.

“But we will finish this season first.”