Liverpool have submitted their 25-man squad to the Premier League as required by the new rules that came in force from today – except in Liverpool’s case they only managed to scrape 21 players together for the squad.
The rules only apply to players over 21, so Ngog and Pacheco do not need to be named.
For those players who are over 21, the club can name a maximum of 25 players, of whom a maximum of 17 can be “non-homegrown”.
There’s no requirement to name a minimum number of homegrown players, but any less than 8 means a squad will contain less than its permitted 25 total players.
Liverpool’s transfer policy this summer seems to have been based around the need to cut the wage bill and raise funds to pay the wages of the players that couldn’t be forced out or offloaded.
LFC Squad:
Homegrown players: 1 Jones, 2 Johnson, 3 Konchesky, 8 Gerrard, 10 J Cole, 23 Carragher, 26 Spearing, 32 Darby
Non-Homegrown players: 4 Meireles, 5 Agger, 6 Aurelio, 9 Torres, 14 Jovanovic, 16 Kyrgiakos, 17 Maxi, 18 Kuyt, 19 Babel, 21 Lucas, 25 Reina, 28 Poulsen, 37 Skrtel
Under-21s (including reserves): 12 Pacheco, 22 D Wilson, 24 Ngog, 33 Shelvey, 34 Kelly, 39 Eccleston, 42 Gulacsi, 40 Ayala, 36 Irwin, 41 Hansen, 43 Bouzanis, 44 Palsson, 45 Ince, 46 Amoo, 48 Bruna, 49 Robinson, Brouwer, Chamberlain, Cooper, Kohlert, Mavinga, Mendy, Poloskei, Roberts, Saric, Simon
Considering man Utd submitted a 23 man squad and most of the teams other than Man City were unable to submit 25 man squads so why all the fuss with Liverpool. Give up on the knocikng of Liverpool YNWA.
Who wrote this tosh?
a retard…
@ Muz – the size of our squad is just the tip of the iceberg, just one of a number of problems this club faces.
Another of which is the surprising number of people who think it doesn’t have any problems.
Your comment speaks for itself Mr Blowman. Thank you.
Negative net spend AGAIN in the transfer market.
No news on the exit of Hicks and Gillett.
Not a good summer for the future of Liverpool.
Can a boycott of club matches work. Im so angry with Hicks and Gillett, that my ticket purchase is going towards paying their debt. I dont buy any merchandise or fod/drink in the ground because of this.
But they have contempt for suckers like me as one of their biggest earners is gate receipts.
What has happened during the summer to make me as a fan think Liverpool are becoming a stronger football club to challenge for the top of the premier league, NOTHING.
Its a case of blind faith and hope.
Coordinated mass direct action against their pockets is what will make them take notice.
Aside from number of players in the squad its the strength of our squad that worries me.
On paper that is the weakest squad I have seen at Liverpool for some time.
We are now a selling club. People no longer consider us contenders when predicting who wins what. We are well on the road to mediocrity. Torres our only world class player that has years of being world class still in front of him is giving us one more season. If he were to go I couldnt see us attracting anyone of his caliber to replace him.
The emergence of Chelsea, Man City and now Spurs will ensure that unless we get taken over by a very wealthy investor we wont be able to attract the type of players to allow us compete.
We’re quickly reaching a point of fading off into mediocrity.
That 21-man squad includes Spearing and Darby, two good young players but unless they make a huge impression on Roy in training they’re likely to spend the season in the reserves. Of the under-21s we can use there are only 3, maybe 4, who we’d consider as players with potential to be part of the first team this season when needed.
It’s that “when needed” that is perhaps the most worrying. Changing doctors doesn’t guarantee a season with fewer injuries and I’m not sure that the “first 11” is good enough to bring us the success we want, let alone the players we’ll rely on should any of them get injured or suspended.
It all makes pretty grim reading, and I know i’m supposed to be giving Hodgson a chance n all that but i’m just feeling hopeless about the season ahead. I really cant see how we’re going to improve on 7th, especially when you consider the squad Man City has and the form that Spurs can show.
After looking at this squad i’m feeling pretty depressed. I think Gerrard is finished, an injury to Torres and thats it really..we’re fu*ked! I dont rate the new signings apart from Miereles (who might not even settle) and I think the signing of Joe Cole was the equivalent of sticking a dummy in a babies mouth to stop it crying..Purslow threw us a bone and the majority are happily chomping away. All the while ticket prices shoot up, new kit in the shops to be bought, our money for players is used to finance a loan and the man who should be in charge is shaping the current European Champions into the image that we should have today.
Sorry for the negativity but my optimism went out the door with Rafa. The board can add me to the ever growing list of broken people they’re leaving in their wake.
But we’ll soldier on regardless..”when you walk through a storm” n all that. Its just a shame tho..it really shouldnt be like this
Tom Hicks took his hometown baseball club to bankruptcy, in the midst of the only decent season they have had in a long time. Don’t expect this to end any other way than exceedingly ugly. He thinks bankers, and creditors in general, are suckers. and not of this will effect his “personal money” since this is just “business money.” Great thing you did to the “club I love” Dave Moores, you unapologetic, naive, simple moron.
@ Juan
Then you havn’t been watching LFC playing for a long time now have you. The squad is actually stronger than it was last year. Mascharno was a loss alright but the rest is just spring cleaning. Nobody except Citeh have any money to spend & that’s clear now. It’s such a pity so much was wasted in the last few years. Some one wrote on here a while back about how annoying it is to see Milner & Adam johnson at Citeh when we could have had them both a year or two ago for very reasonable money at a time when it was being wasted on the likes of Riera, Dosena, Aquailani and Lucas. What ever chairman signed off on those lot should be shot, just imagine what we could do with that type of spending now
@ Todd – The squad is stronger? We lose Mascherano, the rest is “spring cleaning” and yet the squad is stronger? How?
@ Corey…you have summed up my feelings for Dave Moores perfectly. We are in the midst of a very real storm. I was hoping that a change of ownership would take place this month and now it all rests with RBS and the October deadline.
Until we can get Gillette and Hicks out we are just papering over the cracks. I really wish Roy and the lads well this season as it is going to be very tough.
I am very worried that we were unable to land another striker before the transfer deadline as that was a major part of the downfall last season when Fernando was injured. I would have thought another striker was the number 1 priority as opposed to anothet holding midfielder.
Raoul is an excellent player, but I dont want to see a line up with two holding midfielders. Maybe Babel will get the opportunity to play a few games as a lone striker?
The takeover talk is now unnervingly silent…….
Jim,
Squad depth and quality notwithstanding what really concerns me is the complete lack of any information coming out of Anfield about the sale of the club.
The last time MB spoke he talked about several other bids still being under consideration once Kenny Huang had dropped out.
Normally journalists get wind of what is happening but no-one is reporting anything. This either suggests the best kept secret since Mourinho’s love of custard creams or the club has no realistic offers on the table.
With Armageddon just a month away is there any possibility of salvation?
Well apart form Mascherano who else did we loose that was a first team regular last year? Only players that Rafa had dropped or refused to play have gone. Cole is a good signing, Wilson is an excellent signing & hopefully will push himself into the first team, Meireles I think is excellent from what I’ve seen of him, Joanavic I’m not so sure of, but he looks better than Reira, Shelvey I believe has real potential to push his way into the first team as does pacheco & Kelly( and if they’re not good enough move them on). Konchesky & Aurelio provide better balance than last year at left back. Sure we would all have loved another striker & we do need one, but they are expensive, even bad ones. In the past we would probably have bought a halfbaked one just to spend the money but that wasn’t always the right option either. The key here is priorities, & top 4 is our only one. Let’s see how Spurs cope with CL during the week & PL at weekend. It’s not easy. Sometimes you felt that Rafa just didn’t have the same respect for ther PL as the CL and this is understandable because of the revenues involved but also because the CL provided Rafa with a bigger stage for himself. If only people who say they are fans would just support Roy(just for a year) and see how he does. The Kop chanted & sang Rafa songs to the very end despite what the had to endure last year. The game against WBA was terrible I agree, but the fans who have made the effort to be there need to create a bit of an atmosphere & do their bit to lift things. If the club is not sold & Roy has a disaster of a season, then ok, maybe then we will all sit down and cry into our soup and in fairmness I’ll accept that negative articles do attract better following at the moment. We have enough enemies all over the place. As an editor of a site like this you should be backing & supporting Roy all the way & not always looking for a negative to undermine him. The filty scum media love to refer to him as “the 62 yr old” & use getty images of the most unflattering kind, usually of him in shorts scratching his head. Well they don’t refer to Ferguson as the “68 year old” do they now, no of course not he’s Sir. So please on this site refer to our manager as Roy at least he deserves that. The window is closed now, there’s nothing can be done, back the team as you would have if Rafa were still in charge & hope that there is someone out there with 1/2 a billion burning a hole in their pocket. Anyway that’s my rant for the night.
@ Todd
I dont think anyone is suggesting its Roys fault for the squad not being up to scratch and as far as I can see very few people if any on here are undermining Roy. Like Rafa hes had his hands tied.
You list many players in your comment above but how many of them are proven premiership quality better than what was already there? The answer is none. You hope Jovanovic will be better than Riera but who knows if he will. Wilson will make a few appearances this season but no more than Ayala and co last year.
Joe Cole is a guy i’m delighted we signed but there are even question marks over him, he hasnt been fit or played well for two seasons now so until he proves he is still up to the task I dont see how hes improved things yet.
The difference is the players we lost like Benayoun and Mascherano were premiership quality, Mascherano potentially world class.
It’s a short squad but at least it’s not as short as Barcelona’s
@ Ray
In terms of the sale of the club, MB/CP/”The Club” seem to be prompted to speak out at random. MB spoke to the guardian after Kenny Huang’s name was first mentioned, the club released a statement the day a so-called “number of bids” had gone in, CP spoke to the radio 2 days later, then it all went quiet.
If MB will respond to an announcement a “bidder” has announced his arrival why not respond to an announcement a “bidder” has decided to walk away?
It was also MB’s loose deadline (he said) to get the deal done by the end of the month, and all along he’s said they’re on target or where they expected to be. So why no update?
In my view, if everything was going well, there’d be an update.
And as for journalists getting wind of what’s happening – a lot of the time that comes because someone wants them to know what’s going on (or to know a version of what’s going on). As you say, either there’s some very sensitive work going on or nobody wants the journalists to know that nothing whatsoever is happening.
@ Todd
Forget about Rafa – he’s gone. He earned the respect he got and even some of those who wanted him out didn’t feel he should lose that respect. But he’s gone now and Roy should be judged on what he does. Everything you say seems to boil back down to Rafa.
Some fans felt that Rafa was put in a position by the club that he should never have been put into. Some fans felt Rafa was always quick with an excuse, some fans are able to feel exactly the same about the board’s and owners’ part in our troubles regardless of who the manager is. But with the latter it’s hard to find anyone who thinks we’ll be challenging for the league this season, even if that was their demand or expectation last season – now it’s all about aiming for the top four, as it should have been from the start of last season.
Most of the complaints I’ve seen about new signings are aimed at the lack of funds that meant we had to look at those players, not aimed at the manager. That said there are still doubt about how much of a part he’s played in those signings and how much has been down to the new Director of Football style work of CP and EM.
It’s great to have such potential in and around the squad – but can we rely on that if we end up with a mini injury crisis?
I don’t write anything on here with the aim of getting more hits. Negative stuff does get a lot of hits but so does positive stuff. If you want positive stuff go the official site, where they’ve not got the freedom to say what they really think and have to look for the positives as much as possible. Even then if you look at the forums on the official site you can see that people with negative opinions of the club are allowed to get that off their chests.
You sound a touch paranoid to be truthful with you. What’s the harm in referring to him as “the 62 year old”? Most of the time these descriptions pop up because otherwise the whole article sounds like “Roy said,” “Roy did,” “Roy wants” “said Roy”, “Roy had”, “Roy was”, “Roy is,” – and so on. So it gets varied and most of the time there’s no agenda in that. “Roy”, “the 62 year old”, “the former Fulham boss”, “Hodgson”, “the manager”, “the boss” – after that it gets a bit difficult to think up ways of describing him without being repetitive.
As for what images they use, the mainstream media don’t give the job of picking out photos to the writer of the article. They don’t even let him write the headline or decide if it’s a big back-page story or one that will be tucked a few pages in.
And I’m not particularly bothered about how they refer to Ferguson, but they do refer to him as “the 68 year old” if it suits and a quick search will show you that. They probably also refer to him as “the Scot” but will rarely called Hodgson “the Englishman”. It really doesn’t matter and if that’s what you find most irritating about what’s happening with our club now, that people call Hodgson “Hodgson” instead of “Roy”, all I can say is that I wish I was able to focus all my worries about the club on something as trivial and irrelevant as that.
“As an editor of a site like this” – we should be discussing Roy Hodgson in a way that doesn’t set out to attack him for nothing but also doesn’t set out to pretend he’s something he isn’t. We’re fans, not a propaganda website. We’re here to say what we think and we leave room for others (like yourself) to say what they think too, either in comments or on the forum at http://www.anfieldroad.co.uk/forum. If Roy needs to be defended he’ll be defended, if he needs to have questions asked of him they’ll be asked.
But you seem to blinkered to realise that most of the criticism of the club now is about the owners and the board they’ve put in place. It’s about the club promising big summers and briefing local media about investing all transfer fees received on new players before doing nothing of the sort.
Far too many fans really must have thought that Rafa’s departure would cure all our problems.
Do you really you think, as you implied, that now the window’s shut we should all forget about these various troubles and issues the club has? There’s nothing we can do about it? How about putting pressure on the club to sort things out ready for the next transfer window? How about the club, and the banks, coming clean on what’s really going on?
So far this season we’ve had three league games. The first one we were unlucky not to win. The second one we were a complete and utter disgrace. The third one we more or less broke even on being deserving of praise or criticism. So for the last two games there’s enough scope for the manager to have gone to the board of a more functional club and point out that some of those players need to be offloaded and replaced with players with better attitudes and ability.
Roy Hodgson has got a massive job on his hands and as long as he’s honest with us he’ll get backed by the fans. His players were as much to blame for the City game as he was, but then again he’s not in a position to replace some of those players. Our squad’s too weak.
Which was more or less the original point of all this.
@ Juan
What “Todd” is forgetting is that some of those players he’s holding out high hopes of are players that were lined up before Hodgson arrived. Benitez ‘signed’ Wilson and Jovanovich and he’d certainly at least had talks (with Macia present) with Joe Cole. Shelvey was lined up when Rafa was here, Pacheco and Kelly both made their first inroads into the first team under Rafa.
Yet “only players Rafa had dropped or refused to play have gone”. What about Insua? Aquilani? We even let both of those go on loan because we were so desperate to cut the wage bill. We had to offload two promising youngsters to help pay for Konchesky.
Todd mentions Aurelio and Konchesky as “providing better balance” than last year. Aurelio was one of our two left-backs last year too, but due to his injury problems he rarely played and so we used Insua far more than perhaps we should have done with a player of his young age. Time will tell how much of an improvement it turns out to be, but it’s not one that has fans jumping for joy really is it? But at least Hodgson knows him, knows his strengths and his weaknesses, and so won’t be expecting too much of him in some parts of the game or underestimating him in others.
Players will be back from international duty soon, feeling tired or carrying knocks, and we’re in no better a position than we were last season on that score, other than the fact we know some of the older players won’t be on international duty.
Sometimes, it’s nice to get the “glass half empty” viewpoint, if I want the “glass is bone-dry with no hope of ever being filled” view I read a journo from the Times. Torres was a 3/10 to remain at the club past 31st August according to the journo, now it’s shifted to January since Torres reaffirmed him commitment…
I heard somewhere that Broughton said he wouldn’t comment on Media speculation and Keith Harris (not the Orville dude!) said that folk who put their names in the frame for aquisitions very rarely, if ever, end up with what they want…
I also heard somewhere that October is the time when all things financial come to a head for Statler and Waldorf (google “old men from the muppet show”). Could it be that maybe, just maybe, bidders are holding out for that time before telling everyone what’s going on? If you had something you wanted to buy, would you purchase it when conditions are best for you, or for the seller? In my view, no news is good news.
Failing that, no-one comes in for our club and we get relegated.
Those of you worried whether or not the players we bought will make the grade just remember where we got Masch from…that’s right…obscurity. no-one would take a punt on Torres and look at him now (admittedly, a bit of a crock). Pre 2004: Xabi who? Luis What now?
There will be hits and misses as far as players are concerned but every fella who’s turned up wants to play for our club, not play themselves into a move to another club, goodness me, give them a chance!
Ok, ok so that was a bit positive, now for more melancholy hand wringing…we’re doomed, seriously, unless these owners relent (although we’re 30 days away from October so that’s when the end game will start) we will continue to go backwards and end up like Leeds Utd.
I’ll try and be strong! who wants to bet that Nando comes back from the International break broken?
YNWA
In ref to this Jim:
“So for the last two games there’s enough scope for the manager to have gone to the board of a more functional club and point out that some of those players need to be offloaded and replaced with players with better attitudes and ability.”
Which players Vs WBA and City deserve to be replaced due to their attitudes and abilities?
These are the team sheets:
Liverpool
* 25 Reina
* 02 G Johnson
* 05 Agger
* 23 Carragher
* 37 Skrtel
* 08 Gerrard
* 21 Lucas
* 09 Torres (Babel 78)
* 14 Jovanovic (Pacheco 85)
* 18 Kuyt
* 24 Ngog
Liverpool
* 25 Reina
* 02 G Johnson
* 05 Agger
* 23 Carragher
* 37 Skrtel
* 08 Gerrard
* 21 Lucas
* 28 C Poulsen
* 09 Torres (Babel 89)
* 14 Jovanovic (Maxi 59)
* 18 Kuyt
@ Jeff
Do you think the Torres situation over the summer was like a movie, so The Times were talking about something that had already been committed to film but the movie was yet to be released? So when they spoke in advance of Torres saying anything about his future they were just making it up, because since then we’ve seen the movie and they were wrong all along?
Torres said nothing at all in public to confirm where his future might be when asked over the summer. It’s not like he was playing with the media to try and get a new contract or anything, if he was 100% sure about staying then why not just simply say so? “I’m happy at Anfield and it won’t be down to me if I’m not there next season.”
One of Christian Purslow’s friendliest journos is Henry Winter of the The Telegraph. Winter wrote that Purslow “spent much of July shuttling back and forth to Spain to help convince Torres his future lay at Anfield.” This ties in with what other sources have said about the situation. Why would Purslow need to spend so much time (and money) visiting Torres if Torres was happy?
Torres himself says enquiries were made by other clubs. But all the signs are that no firm offers were made, almost certainly down to a mixture of clubs being more careful with their funds this summer, clubs who have the funds not needing to spend them on a striker and Torres having an injury over the summer might have been enough for any remaining clubs to just hold back for now.
If Barcelona had bid £50m for Torres do you think he’d still be here?
The stage we’re at now is where Torres will sit back and reflect on what Purslow told him during those many visits, with Torres comparing those promises to what he nows sees unfolding in front of him. By the time the next transfer window opens Torres may well have put the word out through his agent that he’s had enough.
And if we’re in sufficient financial trouble by then there’s every chance that it won’t even be Torres putting the word out.
It’s not a movie, it’s real life, and people change their minds and change them again. Torres loves the fans and loves what Liverpool FC really is all about – but to remove any risk of him heading off somewhere else we need new owners who can at least come close to the kinds of promises Purslow will have made about the club’s future.
As for October being the magic point where great bidders, perfect for the club, will come flooding out of the woodwork it’s a view I still feel is some way from reality. Broughton wanted bids last month, why would a genuine potential buyer wait until October without at least testing the water and putting in a bid? By taking a chance on waiting until October, when they’ll be competing against all those other bidders also waiting to make an appearance, they took a chance on missing out on being the highest, best (and most importantly) accepted bidder last month.
As for players making the grade or not, Mascherano worked out but how many didn’t? And who was the scout that found us Dossena, Aquilani and Degen? The same one we’ve got now?
And those new signings will be given a chance, because by and large that’s what we do (although it’s been less of a given in recent years than it used to be). But we should be automatically excited about our new signings, not sitting there thinking “he might turn out okay, let’s give him a chance.”
And there’s where we hit one of the problems. The club think they can tell us to be excited and we will be. They think we all believe them when they tell us we’re in for a ‘big summer’ or that we actually invest in the squad rather than taking profits from the increasing value of the overall squad.
At the moment were somewhere between heading for an unstoppable slide and still being able to recover the ground we’ve lost since Christian Purslow invented “the player account”.
We can only be positive up to a point, and seeing as there are no senior games for a short while this is probably the best time to draw attention to what’s really going on in the boardroom.
@Jim.
I have quickly glanced this thread and from what I can gather is that you assume that there are no bids for the club.
The one point I would like to make is, why would MB refuse to give Huang exclusivity on any potential deal if he was the only interested buyer? I think there are bids for the club and Huang was found out for what he is, I think he may very easily have been worse than the 2 clowns we have now. I’ll even go further and say that we could have been another Pompy with him at the helm.
@ Rus For the City game just about every outfield player!
It’s a general point, but part of what motivates players is the fear that they’ll stop getting regular games if they don’t give their all. For that to happen they’ve got to feel there’s some genuine competition for their place. How many of those players would have felt that they had to play out of their skin or else they’d risk being sold or dropped down to second choice?
I’m not naming names because then we find ourselves in the realms of creating scapegoats – but too many of our players see themselves as an automatic choice when they should be feeling they’ve got some competition breathing down their neck. And some of our players are too quick to throw the blame around when maybe they need to look at themselves a little more closely.
We get hammered 3-0 and the response was to (dubiously) blame it on player who didn’t even play and then pick all but one of the same 11 for the next game. We won the next game but were far from convincing – in fact we’ve got to thank WBA’s poor finishing for the 3 points as much as we should thank our own players.
That’s my view anyway!
Jim
I reading you a long time now. Can I ask you one question. If we did go on and by some miracle have a marvellous season, would you be happy or would you be devastated.
@ Mr F
I’m certain there are no other bids for the club. And that comes from putting a lot of different pieces from a lot of different sources together.
Is MB working for the good of the fans? Or the good of the banks? Or one or both owners?
Huang was never the man with the money, he was never billed as such. He was the man bringing investors in. All this stuff done to discredit him as all well and good but if the banks were happy with the proof of funding then how on earth did he pull that off if he didn’t have true investors behind him? We’re in a different world to where we were in 2007, you don’t turn up at RBS HQ pretending to be an American billionaire and get money thrown at you to buy a football club. If Huang proved the funds were in place (and I’m told he did) then he seems to have been a lot more than the chancer some have had him billed as.
I doubt Pompey ever asked for proof of funds over and above getting the cash to buy each previous owner out. LFC have asked for proof of funding for the purchase of the club and paying off of the debt, as well as the stadium finance and also the finance to run the club for the foreseeable future.
And all of this could be checked out in further detail as the period of exclusivity went on. We’re sat outside looking in, the board and the banks are in a position to negotiate and ask for further information.
The truth will come out in the end.
Do I think the situation was like a movie? No. Did I read that Torres said he would like to concentrate on the World Cup and then talk about his future afterwards? Yes. Contracts for professional footballers by and large mean nothing these days, so how many times, and at what points during the summer, do players need to tell us they are staying?
Torres could have said what you suggested he say, Instead, after the World Cup, he said this: “I am looking forward to the challenge ahead. My commitment and loyalty to the club and to the fans is the same as it was on my first day when I signed.”
Clearly his timing was atrocious because he didn’t say it over the summer when he was asked, as he was concentrating on the World Cup and getting himself fit. Also, from the first day he signed, he’s been on a knife edge? as soon as a big money bid comes in for him, he’ll be gone? No doubt the boy is very very important to the club, but he’s not bigger than the club…
To disbelieve what he says is to call him a liar. According to all reports about him, he seems like a really nice guy…perhaps it is all a pack of lies and he’ll be gone as soon as someone slips £50mil into the garters of Hicks and Gillett. More on that point, if the club said: “We’re getting £50mil so pack your bags mate!” then yes, if Barca bid £50mil he would be gone. If the club said: “listen, we’ve received a bid of £50mil from Barca, we don’t want to sell you but we will respect your wishes” i get the feeling his response might be different.
What’s this about a “magic point”? there’s no such thing as a perfect bidder and we’d be fools to expect that. All I’m saying is that October is when H & G’s hand can be forced by the banks…none of us are in possession of the full facts and I’ve found that I only want to poke my nose into board affairs since the americans took over. I haven’t been reading this site since Moores was in charge, where you asking him what was going on with transfers etc? How about the sale of the club? did you get much info?
Keith Harris has a client who has completed due dilligence, so there’s one bidder at least. Not many folk have much cash to splash these days so i should think our woodwork is safe for now. I take it Kenny Huang also performed due dilligence? or did he try to force the issue by telling everyone he was going direct to RBS? There seemed to be a desperation to give this guy the club because anything is better than what we have now…if he was serious he should have kept the media out of it. In my opinion. We don’t actually know how many people have registered interest, put a bid in or anything else so I’ll keep my counsel until
I see you ignored my “there will be hits and misses” comment when it comes to players…the scout can recommend, the manager still has the final decision. I’m assuimg this scout (the same one we have now) also found Skrtel, Agger, Lucas (YES LUCAS) Maxi, Kuyt, Johnson, Shelvey, Cole et al?
If this seems a little spiky, then I apologise, but I am well aware that this is real life, I love this bl**dy club and I want what’s best. Commercially, we’re doing better than we’ve ever done it’s just a crying shame that we have to service this crippling debt.
I still have hope that we will be OK, no amount of sarcasm and “woe is me” is going to shake that. Sometimes, believe it or not, I do lose sleep over this situation but do I wear Red tinted glasses? You betcha!
Evening All
@Jim.
I have been wondering for a while that maybe the owners are the one’s who are holding all the cards, and the story that they are being forced to sell by the banks is a load of tosh.
I know of 2 financial experts who have said that the yanks aren’t in danger of losing the club. One of those was the football expert from Liverpool Uni, and the other was a financial advisor from the city.
The reasons why the financial advisor from the city said that the owners wont let the club get taken over by the banks is because the law works differently over here to how it does in the states. Under UK law if your company is taken over by the banks then you lose all your money, but in the USA for some reason you don’t. I know it is a very vague way of explaining it but it has something to do with the American Law not wanting to put off potential entrepreneurs. The bank will also be very reluctant to take over the club as it would then lose points wouldn’t it.
I think MB was brought in by the clowns as they have no credibility left what so ever. If you think about it MB comes with a big reputation doesn’t he, and he looks and sounds the part. A lot of people where put off by the yanks just because of the way they were, basically because they weren’t british.
Do you think MB was brought in by the banks or just the yanks?
@ Kevin – If that miracle happened I’d be delighted – and I dare say I’d be a lot happier than you would have been had Rafa been given another year and gone on to produce a similar miracle!
I mention Rafa because going over your past comments you seem to mention Rafa in most of them, or you say something that clearly refers to him indirectly (“going downhill since 2004” for example).
The only time you’ve broken off briefly from that is to have a dig at Tony Evans (presumably because you saw him as “pro Rafa”) and Dion Fanning (who you say yourself is a fan of Rafa’s).
Obviously as well as being suspicious of anyone who doesn’t share your view that Benitez started our downfall in 2004 you accuse the whole of the Irish media of being anti-Liverpool and proclaim Jose Mourinho as the greatest manager in Europe.
As the saying goes, we’re all entitled to our opinions – one of yours being that “with Purslow, well at least he’s a lifelong fan and will want the best for us as much as anyone else.”
Then again, less than a week later you were saying this about Purslow: “Where do you think Christian Purslow is in all this. Surely he has to be behind the Kirdi bid as he is just a pupet for H&G. What do you think? surely he will link up with those 2 tits to shaft us yet again and this is why they sacked Rafa. They knew Rafa would go to the media in Spain about their dirty dealings.”
I’ll ask you one question now: You suggested I jumped to someone’s support because he’s anti-Liverpool – how on earth do you work that one out? Maybe you get wound up by Mancs on LFC forums who post on there to wind up people like you. But it’s one thing getting an account on a forum of a club you don’t like just to wind people up, but it’s quite something else to invest so much time and effort as to run a whole site on a club you don’t like.
By all means question what I write, because I’m not saying I’m right and I’ve admitted in the past when I’ve been wrong. But stop pinning such petty motives on the heads of anyone you don’t agree with just because they don’t share your views. They probably weren’t thinking of you as they formed their opinions, they almost certainly aren’t writing or saying things just to annoy you.
@ Jeff
Maybe I’ve misunderstood your comments but I think you’re trying to say that Torres never had any doubts about where his future would be, that the thought of moving hadn’t crossed his mind. If so then I disagree with you. I base my opinion on what I’ve been told, what I’ve read, what I’ve read into it and so on. It’s my opinion but I’m very firm in that opinion.
“To disbelieve what he says is to call him a liar.” Where have I disputed or disbelieved anything Torres has said? Some people think Torres was 100% happy and had no intention of leaving, and others see it that he was very unhappy and seriously considering his future. Others have a view that falls somewhere in the middle. There’s always a chance I’ve missed it, but as far as I can tell there isn’t one quote from Torres where he tells us he was never in any doubt before or during the world cup about staying.
There’s absolutely no criticism on my part for Torres in that. None whatsoever. We’ve all had situations where we start to have doubts if a situation is right for us to be in. And doubts don’t mean a decision has been made either way, it means we just don’t know which way to turn and we need to think long and hard about it.
My opinion is that he had doubts about staying, my opinion is that he put those doubts to one side and decided to make an effort to overcome them, partly based on promises he’d been made by Purslow and one or two other things.
If we change owners to someone with the means to get rid of the worries about finance I’m sure the doubts will be easier to bury, if Roy exceeds expectations they will too. Anything else and he’s probably vulnerable to an approach from any side that can offer him what he’s not getting at Anfield.
And it still might turn out not to be as attractive to him as staying.
October is when the banks might force the owners’ hand – but they’re in the same position now. They agreed to extend finance until October but that wasn’t a guaranteed extension and they reserved the right to pull the finance at any time. If they are willing to force the owners out in October they’re willing to force them out now. If a bidder is in a position to put the money up in October and force them out they’re in a position to do it now. Again, just my view.
I’m not sure what the relevance is of your question about Moores, but I know if I knew then what I know now I’d have acted differently.
Keith Harris had a client who completed due diligence, made a bid that was accepted but then pulled out at the last minute – back in 2008 off the top of my head. He later issued them with a writ for not paying his bill. The indications are that he was referring to them. And his credibility isn’t the best amongst people connected past and present with the LFC board but I can’t really expand on that. “Publicity seeker” is a term I’ve heard used more than once and although he’s not the only one to be referred to in that way I’ve never heard so many different people refer to him that way.
There’s no desperation on my part for Kenny Huang to get the club unless those “promises” can be verified, and as far as I can tell they’ve proved they’ve the money to live up to the promises. As for “due diligence” I don’t know enough about the concept to say if that’s a formal procedure or otherwise, but from what I can tell there are ways and means of this being done in circumstances such as these that differ to a normal sale process.
It does seem spiky and I think it’s a little pointless arguing so I’ll step aside from this now for a bit, I doubt either of us want it to be that way!
As for red tinted glasses, I’ve a pair of my own and I’m not someone who sits around demanding we get back to what it would have been like if H&G hadn’t been allowed in to start with. We can only fix what’s in front of us, not change history, and we might have to put up with stuff we’ll never be happy about.
I still have hope we’ll be OK too – but we’ll not be OK by sitting here quietly nodding in agreement to all the propaganda the club are putting out about how great our signings have been and just trusting that board to do the right thing while our backs are turned.
Doom isn’t inevitable, but it’s inevitable if we’re completely complacent.
Mr F,
If you mean the man who sounds like half of comedy act Cannon and Ball I think you’re the first person who takes him seriously when it comes to his opinions (and guesswork) of what’s happening with the sale of LFC. And I know of other finance people who are convinced the owners could lose the club – but only if it’s the will of RBS to make that happen.
Everyone feels they “know” what the bank will do but they don’t. And the nine points thing isn’t necessarily going to happen if the bank takes the club over and runs it as a going concern until it finds a buyer. The worry is what kind of buyer it finds.
It doesn’t really matter what the US law says about banks taking companies over, the money was borrowed by two English companies, “Kop” and LFC, and they are the companies RBS would go after.
@Jim.
What I’m talking about isBritish law is different to US law when it comes to bankrutcys etc. In the US the law is set out so as not to put off people starting businesses, so if they own a business then they don’t lose money on that business if it goes bust. In the UK if you own a company then you lose money which doesn’t happen in the UK.
The point I am making about US law is that just because TOH lost his baseball team in the US doesn’t mean that he will allow the same to happen to LFC. I am fully aware that US law doesn’t apply in the UK, and that is what the financial advisor was talking about when he said that he doesn’t think that the yanks would just not pay the money and allow the club to go tits up.
With regards the Tom Cannon, well he is a profesor at Liverpool Uni, and he does get paid to be an expert on such matters Jim, and with no disrespect to yourself I would listen to him before most other people. He said that providing LFC can afford torepay the loans then RBS will not be able to take ovr the club.
I can only repeat what other people say about Tom Cannon, it’s usually not the most respectful of comments!
If the owners had the money would they have allowed the banks to impose conditions like making them step down from being joint chairman and so on?
What Cannon will mean is that if LFC and Kop can afford to PAY OFF the loans RBS can’t take over the club. Can LFC and Kop raise £240m – £280m in the next four weeks?
And if they do, how will they afford to service the new debt they will inevitably take on in order to pay RBS off?
Tom Cannon never said they wouldn’t lose the club, what he said was that in his opinion he doesn’t think they are in as much trouble as people think. I think also that a lot of people will just form a negative opinion of someone just because they don’t say what people want to hear, and that is why i believe that a lot of people may dislike Cannon.
He was basically saying the same as what the other city financial advisor said and that was that they both believed that TOH and GG would both go out of their way to stop LFC from being taken over by the banks.
Like you said Jim no body knows whats happening and everyone has an opinion, but Cannon and the other guy just gave a different possible scenario. I am sure that the city advisor said or elluded to the 2 owners actually using their own money to sure up LFC.
Another point which was made by the city advisor was that yes the owners want out of the club as they would be better off without the club, but if they have too they would in his opinion use their own cash to keep the club afloat, so they don’tlose any assets they have in the club, which wouldn’t happen under US law.
RBS can ask for the money back anytime. If they gave a deadline of October i would expect them to stick to that, but they have no obligation to lend.
They can then set a date for the loan to be repaid, if this isn’t done they can take control of the security used for the loan.
I hope it happens then we can get a sale organised and hopefully the bank would allow the fans first shout.
To be fair Jim thats was a fair enough answer to my Q earlier in many respects as you are just voicing your frustrations at the hierachy.
I agree we need more depth in the squad. I do think certain players could do with watching Paul Scholes more often (look to pass forwards first)…. and we are short of another striker.
But I also think that the players we have, in the main, are good enough for a top 4 finish…. you only have to look at the round up of internationals tonight to see we have enough talent.