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Liverpool up for sale


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Xabi Alonso by a country mile was Liverpool's best signing in the last 20 years for me.

 

And yet wasn't Rafa desperate to get rid of him a season before he did?

 

Aye - as were half the Liverpool faithful. Lost respect for him because they felt he 'wasn't totally committed to the club' when in reality, he was (at the time).

 

Fucking mugs...

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Benitez was essentially the Spanish Allardyce. Their tactics under him involved getting ten big men standing about kicking the ball into touch first-time, and then waiting for Gerrard to run into the box and fall over for the penalty. Glass man Torres is a good striker but other than that their squad consists of cloggers primarily.

 

Always tickled me and this is true, that the full backs weren't allowed to cross the half way line unless thez were losing and it was the last 10min.

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Xabi Alonso by a country mile was Liverpool's best signing in the last 20 years for me.

 

And yet wasn't Rafa desperate to get rid of him a season before he did?

 

Aye - as were half the Liverpool faithful. Lost respect for him because they felt he 'wasn't totally committed to the club' when in reality, he was (at the time).

 

Fucking mugs...

 

 

Not quite right SB. The previous two seasons had seen Xabi become a bit stale by his usual standards, he also had a few injuries and they weren't the best of seasons. Benitez thought Barry would be a better option with a bit more versatility, plus he was English. Alonso was the player he knew he could make the most money from so he tried to sell him. Xabi refused to go, took it personal and went on to play the best football of his life. No-one wanted him to go after that season including Benitez, but Xabi had made his mind up to go back home.

Edited by Pacinofan
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Benitez was essentially the Spanish Allardyce. Their tactics under him involved getting ten big men standing about kicking the ball into touch first-time, and then waiting for Gerrard to run into the box and fall over for the penalty. Glass man Torres is a good striker but other than that their squad consists of cloggers primarily.

 

Always tickled me and this is true, that the full backs weren't allowed to cross the half way line unless thez were losing and it was the last 10min.

 

Benitez liked his attacking full backs more than wingers and was always trying to upgrade. Johnson and Insua were both attacking full backs. Strange comments from you.

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Xabi Alonso by a country mile was Liverpool's best signing in the last 20 years for me.

 

And yet wasn't Rafa desperate to get rid of him a season before he did?

 

Aye - as were half the Liverpool faithful. Lost respect for him because they felt he 'wasn't totally committed to the club' when in reality, he was (at the time).

 

Fucking mugs...

 

 

Not quite right SB. The previous two seasons had seen Xabi become a bit stale by his usual standards, he also had a few injuries and they weren't the best of seasons. Benitez thought Barry would be a better option with a bit more versatility, plus he was English. Alonso was the player he knew he could make the most money from so he tried to sell him. Xabi refused to go, took it personal and went on to play the best football of his life. No-one wanted him to go after that season including Benitez, but Xabi had made his mind up to go back home.

 

He wanted to go solely because of the carry on the previous season though - he as good as admitted that.

 

Point still stands that he was the best signing your club made for a generation.

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Xabi Alonso by a country mile was Liverpool's best signing in the last 20 years for me.

 

And yet wasn't Rafa desperate to get rid of him a season before he did?

 

Aye - as were half the Liverpool faithful. Lost respect for him because they felt he 'wasn't totally committed to the club' when in reality, he was (at the time).

 

Fucking mugs...

 

 

Not quite right SB. The previous two seasons had seen Xabi become a bit stale by his usual standards, he also had a few injuries and they weren't the best of seasons. Benitez thought Barry would be a better option with a bit more versatility, plus he was English. Alonso was the player he knew he could make the most money from so he tried to sell him. Xabi refused to go, took it personal and went on to play the best football of his life. No-one wanted him to go after that season including Benitez, but Xabi had made his mind up to go back home.

 

He wanted to go solely because of the carry on the previous season though - he as good as admitted that.

 

Point still stands that he was the best signing your club made for a generation.

 

I agree the trying to sell him was what made his mind up.

 

He's certainly one of the best.

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Xabi Alonso by a country mile was Liverpool's best signing in the last 20 years for me.

 

And yet wasn't Rafa desperate to get rid of him a season before he did?

 

Aye - as were half the Liverpool faithful. Lost respect for him because they felt he 'wasn't totally committed to the club' when in reality, he was (at the time).

 

Fucking mugs...

 

 

Not quite right SB. The previous two seasons had seen Xabi become a bit stale by his usual standards, he also had a few injuries and they weren't the best of seasons. Benitez thought Barry would be a better option with a bit more versatility, plus he was English. Alonso was the player he knew he could make the most money from so he tried to sell him. Xabi refused to go, took it personal and went on to play the best football of his life. No-one wanted him to go after that season including Benitez, but Xabi had made his mind up to go back home.

 

He wanted to go solely because of the carry on the previous season though - he as good as admitted that.

 

Point still stands that he was the best signing your club made for a generation.

 

I agree the trying to sell him was what made his mind up.

He's certainly one of the best.

 

 

Same situation we had with Shay Given tbf

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Not since Terry Venables and Lord Sugar took their battle for control of Spurs to the High Court has the Strand witnessed such a key moment in the history of one of England's most illustrious clubs.

 

Back in 1993, Lord Sugar, or Baron Sugar of Clapton to use his full title, was just plain old Alan and Venables was a footballing folk hero with the prospect of managing England at Euro 96 all to come. How innocent football seemed then.

 

It wasn't, of course. And it was Sugar, remember, whose satellite dishes made Sky's revolution of the Premier League possible.

 

But the courtroom tussle for control of Liverpool that begins on Tuesday demonstrates, perhaps even better than Portsmouth's financial collapse, the end of an era of rampant commercialism first ushered in 18 years ago by men like Lord Sugar.

 

When Sugar bought just under half of Tottenham in 1991, the club was valued at a little over £16m. What is at stake in the High Court on Tuesday is the sale of Liverpool to the American baseball team owner John W Henry for £300m.

 

That sum would be much, much more if Liverpool were not, to use the City parlance that has entered our footballing lexicon, such a distressed asset.

 

What Sugar and his fellow pioneers might not have foreseen all those years ago was just how damaging a problem debt would become. Nor would they have guessed just how high a price the national game would pay for the Premier League's love affair with money and the Football Association's inability to regulate the changing landscape properly.

 

For it is debt that has brought Liverpool to the High Court, where the Royal Bank of Scotland will argue that American owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett breached the terms of a £237m loan extension by attempting to block the takeover by Henry.

 

With Gillett no longer really in the picture - Mill Financial, a US hedge fund, took control of his stake when he reneged on a loan he used to acquire his 50% share in the club in 2007 - Hicks is fighting hard to retain Liverpool.

 

As we know, it was Hicks who tried to reconstitute the Liverpool board after it decided to sell to Henry last Tuesday. He wants his son Mack Hicks and Hicks Holdings colleague Lori Kay McCutcheon to replace managing director Christian Purslow and commercial director Ian Ayre on the board. But RBS says this is against the conditions laid down in a refinancing agreement put together in April.

 

If the bank succeeds in persuading Mr Justice Floyd to rule in its favour, Liverpool chairman Martin Broughton can push ahead with a second court hearing to rule on his right to approve the club's sale to Henry's New England Sports Ventures (NESV).

 

If RBS loses, there will effectively be no sale agreement with NESV and Liverpool will be back to square one. Such an outcome will give Hicks control of the club again but his joy may be very short-lived. On Friday, the £237m loan is due to be repaid to RBS. Unless he can come up with the money or persuade the bank to extend his credit again, then the board may be left with little alternative but to go into administration.

 

That would lead to a nine-point penalty from the Premier League and possibly scare off other potential buyers, such as Peter Lim, the Singapore-based businessman revealed as the rival bidder to NESV by BBC business editor Robert Peston on Monday.

 

Liverpool would also become the biggest financial casualty yet of the supposedly booming English football business.

 

It is a sad and sorry mess. And although the Premier League must be commended for introducing tougher regulations for future owners in the last 12 months, many fans may reflect that it is too little too late to save great clubs like Portsmouth and Liverpool from the side effects of unchecked capitalism.

 

Even now, we learn that John W Henry has already passed the Premier League's requirements for new owners. And yet we know very little detail of his plans.

 

He may well be exactly the sort of owner Liverpool need but, having been burned once, the club's supporters will be right to read all the glowing backgrounders on the Red Sox owner with a high degree of caution.

 

And even if he does take over, how much more money will he need to find - and where will he find it from? - to finance the investment in the team and the move to a new stadium? That could be another £300m to £400m on top of the cost of buying out Hicks and Gillett (Mill Financial).

 

With British businessmen like Lord Sugar now out of the game - he remarked after selling his majority stake in Spurs for £22m in 2001 that Tottenham had been a "waste of my life" - it is foreign investors who still show the keenest interest in acquiring England's biggest football clubs.

 

And whatever happens in the High Court in the coming days, Liverpool's experience shows - again - that the game's administrators should be asking more searching questions as to why that is so and whether it is the right thing for English football.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/davidbond/2010/...s_for_high.html

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Liverpool get new £320m offer from billionaire Lim

 

Peter Lim, a Singapore billionaire, is offering £320m in cash for Liverpool football club and its liabilities.

 

The offer trumps the £300m offered by New England Sports Ventures - which was accepted last week by Liverpool's chairman, Martin Broughton.

 

BBC business editor Robert Peston says Mr Lim is also offering to provide £40m in cash to buy players.

 

Liverpool's board will find it difficult to ignore the offer, raising more uncertainty about the club's fate.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11523503

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"Representative for Hicks and Gillett claims case against them paints 'misleading picture of the issues'. This case is not about, he says, the owners trying to maintain their ownership of the club. They accept reality that their ownership will shortly come to an end. It's also not about owners trying to put spanner in the works regarding a sale. The owners accept that some sort of sale will have to occur. They are not intent on stopping sale to NESV. The owners' issue is that the board did not properly enter into the NESV agreement in that the directors did not properly consider alternative offers and so it is they who are in breach of the terms of the sale agreement with RBS." :(

Edited by Park Life
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RBS: H&G "seeking to profit from confusion"

 

Girolami QC for H&G: RBS have presented "seriously misleading picture of true issues"

 

H&G: accept sale inevitable but say board didn't consider alternatives to NESV

 

H&G: Bid by 'Meriton' (Lim) is still on table and better than nesv, as is an offer from Mill Financial!

 

H&G QC: Bid by Mill Financial (hedge fund who now own G's shares) would pay off all debt and committ to 100m on new stadium

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RBS: H&G "seeking to profit from confusion"

 

Girolami QC for H&G: RBS have presented "seriously misleading picture of true issues"

 

H&G: accept sale inevitable but say board didn't consider alternatives to NESV

 

H&G: Bid by 'Meriton' (Lim) is still on table and better than nesv, as is an offer from Mill Financial!

 

H&G QC: Bid by Mill Financial (hedge fund who now own G's shares) would pay off all debt and committ to 100m on new stadium

 

This is getting cushtier by the minute.

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