Ayre: Brendan is an infectious person
Reds boss Brendan Rodgers has received glowing praise from Liverpool's managing director, Ian Ayre, for the infectious and relentless approach he has adopted since his appointment.
The Northern Irishman was installed as manager in June 2012 and guided the club to a seventh-place finish in the Barclays Premier League during his maiden campaign.
With 12 months' experience at the Anfield helm behind him, Ayre is confident that Rodgers can now build on a 'fantastic second half' to the 2012-13 season.
"Brendan is a fantastic person to work with," Ayre told the Liverpool Echo. "He's quite infectious, a great person to spend time with and he's very personable with the players.
"One of the things I see him do on the odd occasion I go up to Melwood is he zeroes in on individuals around training. At the end of training he will go round and speak to everybody.
"I think it took him most of last year to understand the size of Liverpool Football Club - and he said some of this himself in the final couple of months of last season.
"I think coming from Swansea as an ambitious, young, successful manager and stepping into the Liverpool club was overwhelming in terms of size - certainly not in terms of his ability - and I think he felt that as he went through the season he got more and more used to that.
"There's all sorts of elements to it and he had a fantastic second half of the season. He never stops working, is always on the phone, very collaborative and we work great as a team here so we're very optimistic about this year.
"We've made some good investments in the transfer window and we will continue to look at that until the end of August."