Rodgers: I'm looking for hungry players

Having narrowly missed out on being crowned Barclays Premier League champions to Manchester City, Liverpool have moved quickly to add Rickie Lambert to their ranks in the close season, while a deal has been agreed in principle for Bayer Leverkusen's Emre Can.

And Rodgers insists mentality will be just as important to him as ability when it comes to further bolstering the ranks as the Reds aim to go one better next term.

He told the Liverpool Echo: "What we do need to do to ensure we kick on? We need to ensure we continue with our thinking in terms of the types of players we're going to bring in.

"We want to bring in players who are hungry. They must have the ambition to want to come in and succeed here.

"We need players who there can be no doubts about their quality.

"We're in a position now where we're going straight into the group stage of the Champions League and we're going into the Premier League next season with an expectation and a belief that we can win the league.

"We need players that have those qualities. That belief, players who are willing to improve and who are hungry to improve themselves.

"If we can get a number of signings with that profile then we can go on and build on last season."

With the welcome return of Champions League football to come on top of Liverpool's domestic campaign, Rodgers believes a bigger squad will be important to his plans to ensure the team retains a freshness.

"It's one where we just need good players," added the boss.

"The position we were in last summer was that we were losing players who were cover players and it was difficult for us to bring in starters.

"This year the squad will change around. We will need to change the team regularly over the course of the season in order to keep the efficiency and the energy in the team.

"Those players who are coming in need to be capable starters. They have to be to the level that we require to perform. That is absolutely key for us this summer."