Departing defender Andy Robertson confident Liverpool’s future is in safe hands | OneFootball

Andy Robertson will bring a trophy-laden nine-year spell at Liverpool to an end at Anfield on Sunday but he is confident the next generation will continue to deliver despite a shaky start to their careers.

Scotland’s World Cup-bound captain is set to make his 378th and final appearance at home to Brentford on the same day long-standing team-mate Mohamed Salah also signs off.

The latter has already been outspoken about his thoughts on the dressing room he leaves behind, airing his concerns about falling standards.

But Robertson believes the likes of Alexander Isak, Florian Wirtz, Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez – signed in a £450million rebuild last summer – will come good after a testing campaign in which Liverpool never came close to defending their Premier League title.

“In terms of the club that I am leaving behind I think we are not at the 2017 stage (when Jurgen Klopp was virtually rebuilding from scratch), we are at the transition stage,” said the left-back, who was won eight major honours at Liverpool, including the Champions League and two Premier League titles.

“When we started out the journey Mo Salah didn’t sign as the best player in the world or the best winger in the world, Virgil van Dijk had the potential to be but he wasn’t the best centre-back in the world, Alisson wasn’t the best goalkeeper in the world, Trent (Alexander-Arnold) wasn’t the best right-back in the world.

“We bought players (last summer) that we all got excited about and they will all have an unbelievable career at Liverpool. I have no doubt about that. But they are also young.

“I have seen more than enough in training and in games and their attitude that they will be successful.

“But for the future of Liverpool I believe they have more than enough in that changing room to go and achieve more things again.”

Robertson said everyone had searched for answers to their malaise, which has increased the pressure on head coach Arne Slot, but he felt there was one obvious reason which no-one outside the club would be able to properly comprehend.

That was the death of team-mate Diogo Jota in a car crash last July.

“It is not an excuse, but what we went through in the summer no team will ever go through. I hope they never go through it because the devastation we went through…football didn’t matter,” Robertson added.

“We didn’t care about football for weeks. None of us wanted to train. That was the reality.

“As footballers we then of course have a duty, we have to move on, we have to keep going and we managed that.

“The Bournemouth game (the season opener at Anfield) was ridiculously emotional with all of Jots’ family being there.

“I think in the 20th minute (when, to align with the forward’s now-retired shirt number fans sung Jota’s name) you saw a real dip in performance after that because of the emotional impact that it had on all of us.”