I'm not sure I'm entirely comfortable with Kenny staying if we finish further from 4th than we are now. That would indicate a lack of progress despite a large change in personnel and a full season to allow them to gel. The really good partnerships tend to just fall into place (eg Gerrard-Torres), but many of our new guys don't seem to bring more to Liverpool than we had already, and what we had wasn't the best.
We agree that we're building for the future, but we need to see the signs that the foundations are solid. Right now there are too many questions to suggest that the foundation is more solid than it was a year ago. We've had no European competition to distract us either, so fitness should not have been an issue (and outside Lucas's injury it hasn't really). We had the dominoes set to fall, but somehow they're not dropping.
Credit for reaching the Carling Cup final, absolutely, but we can't let such sideshows distract us from the truth that we need to be in the Champions' League for us to threaten to win the title one day.
The larger issue is: if we sack Kenny, who comes in? Souness, who many think destroyed the club? Rafa, who many think destroyed the club? Another mid-table manager who could be shown up to be another Hodgson? Stop thinking about Mourinho - we don't want him and he doesn't want us. Who else is there? Ancellotti? Rijkaard? Maybe we're better off keeping the King anyway.