BRENDAN RODGERS believes his faith in the goal-scoring threat of his Liverpool squad is finally being repaid ahead of Sunday’s Premier League trip to Manchester United.

Earlier in the campaign the Reds were overly-reliant on Luis Suarez and struggled to make their dominance in games count.

However, in nine matches since the start of December, Rodgers’ side have netted 19 times with no fewer than 11 different goal scorers.

Suarez leads the way with 19 goals in all competitions but the Reds boss is delighted to see the supporting cast chipping in.

“I have great confidence in the group so I never worried about it,” Rodgers said.

“I always said it has to be more than Luis Suarez who scores. As the season has gone on people have improved and developed as players and that has helped the team.

“Everyone has to contribute. There is no point Suarez scoring 40 goals a season and your next best scorer on three or four.

“If you are trying to get up to a certain level of goals it needs to be spread around the team and I think we are seeing that.

“The centre-halves are scoring, as I said before they need to score from set pieces in the general game if they can, midfield players need to chip in and the wide strikers because they are not out and out wingers in the 4-3-3 we play.”

Rodgers has already added £12million striker Daniel Sturridge to his squad this month and hopes to make further additions.

However, the manager says just as important as doing business in the transfer market is realising the potential of those stars he inherited.

Jordan Henderson, Stewart Downing and Jose Enrique have all been re-energised in recent months after it appeared their days at Anfield were numbered.

“I am not a magician but I will be able to improve players and that is my work,” added Rodgers.

“If I look at the first six months I believe there has been improvements in a lot of the players. I will rinse everything that I possibly can out of them, but the bottom line is about talent. If you don’t initially have that then it can be difficult.

“We will get talents and we will try and maximise what we can out of players. You look at Jordan Henderson, Stewart Downing and Jose Enrique since the start of the season and we have added value back to them. Absolutely.

“Your job as a manager, as well as winning games, is to improve them in every aspect of their game. That is something we will look to do because we don’t have the resources of the top clubs who are out there playing big money. We have to find the difference through the coaching.

“I will always push here to get the best possible squad we can, but what is the most important thing at the minute is putting in place the philosophy and model that will allow us to improve players.”