A new management structure

The slate is clean at Liverpool following the Fenway Sports Group cull that extended to Kenny Dalglish on Wednesday and the process of installing new bodies is under way. Replacements for Damien Comolli as the director of football, commercial director Graham Bartlett and head of communications Ian Cotton are expected within the fortnight, although Comolli's former role is to change. How it will change is, as yet, unclear, but the candidate FSG select as manager will have to accept working within the new structure.

Ian Ayre, Liverpool's managing director, explained: "We are going to have a different structure [to the director of football model]. There will be more than one person in and around that role, in the sense of dividing up some of the responsibility. We are fairly imminent on a lot of the positions where people have exited."

So do Liverpool only want a training ground coach to succeed Dalglish? "I wouldn't go as far as to say it's only a training ground role," added Ayre. "But the idea is to create a structure so that the manager doesn't need to focus on too much else. You want the manager to be focused on getting the best out of his team. What it absolutely isn't, is bringing players in without the manager's input.

"Kenny was very supportive of that and he said to me that the great thing about having someone in a role like we had Damien was in the past he would be going to look at 20 or 30 different players and games just to find one player. We are trying to create as much resource and expertise in all the areas that serve the manager and the football team. Rather than having one or two people trying to achieve everything."

Improve a squad that finished 17 points off Champions League qualification

The absence of Champions League football next season for a third successive year will hurt FSG but, with Liverpool commercially strong and interest repayments nowhere near the levels under Tom Hicks and George Gillett, between £20m-£40m should be available for new signings. Whether that is enough to address the squad's shortcomings depends on whether it is a Damien Comolli or a Graham Carr (Newcastle United's chief scout) who is identifying the targets and doing the deals.

Liverpool's main weakness was glaring this season and effectively cost Dalglish his job: the lack of a proven goalscorer. As Everton showed with the £5m capture of Nikica Jelavic, however, they don't always cost an exorbitant sum. But plenty more is required to meet FSG's demands of Champions League football, with a quick right midfielder and creative midfielder among them. "You wouldn't unveil a plan to take the club forward to bring in a new manager and not invest in it," said Ayre. "There has never been a point in this period when we've seen any lack of support."

Rebuild the confidence of the 2011 signings

For Andy Carroll, Stewart Downing, Jordan Henderson and others, there is no escaping the fact the meagre return on Liverpool's £120m investment in new players under FSG cost an Anfield legend his job. The two men who brought them in, Dalglish and Comolli, have both gone and, by implication, their employers clearly lack confidence in what they have bought. But, unless Liverpool can somehow get their money back, they remain central to the club's prospects of recovery next season.

The new manager must restore that confidence and it was notable that the former manager, in his farewell interview with the Liverpool Echo on Thursday, took that first step. Dalglish said: "You cannot underestimate the pressure that is on a boy who comes to play for Liverpool. But in the first year, what they have done has been a credit. There is now a great foundation to build on and to move forward with."

Keep key players onside

Dalglish's departure has sown uncertainty within the Liverpool squad and, not for the first time in recent years, key figures are wondering in what direction the club is heading. Probably not the greatest time then, for Luis Suárez to reveal to readers of Marca.com that he intends to play in Spain one day.

"I hope to play in Spain in the future, because together with the English and Italian leagues, they are the best in the world and any player would dream of playing there," said the Liverpool striker, who added his favourite players are the Barcelona pair Andrés Iniesta and Xavi Hernández, and predicted a Spanish victory at Euro 2012. The new manager must help convince Suárez, and Liverpool's player of the year Martin Skrtel, to put pen to paper on their new contract offers.

Demanding employers

Victory in the FA Cup final would not have saved Dalglish. That much was made clear by Ian Ayre on Thursday. "It was never about an individual result, and rightly so," he said. "It was a very simple decision based on results and based on whether you believe that that's going to change. Thirty-seven points off the winners, 17 points off fourth place and 14 losses. That was the measurement on which the owners made their decision. And they made their decision without using advisors.

"The Carling Cup and the FA Cup don't generate the revenue and the success that is needed to keep investing. If you want to be successful, you have got to keep investing. People don't want to hear that football is a business. They want to see us put lots and lots of money into the football team and win lots of trophies and games. But you have got to have both. You have got to have continued progress in the league. If you don't do well in the league and you don't get into the Champions League, you are writing cheques from your own pocket, aren't you? That is not a sustainable way going forward."