Don't worry Yorkshire, we're all going to have a chance to laugh at them soon.....
The news that Tom Hicks and George Gillett have secured a refinancing deal at Anfield is just another in a series of sickening blows for Liverpool fans. There will be no rescue mission from DIC, there will be no glorious revolution. A season that started out with so much hope now looks set to end in unmitigated, unprecedented disaster. The Dastardly Duo are here to stay and all we can do is sit back and watch the carnage unfold.
Former owner David Moores had to sell the club because they were nearly SG$240m in debt and needed to invest heavily in order to keep up with Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea. This new deal means that Liverpool are now a staggering SG$480m in debt and further away than ever before from what we should now refer to as ‘The Big Three.’ The Americans have taken this risky new deal out in a week that has seen the global financial markets creaking like a honeymooner’s bed and with the full knowledge that a recession is building up on the horizon like a tropical storm.
Rafa Benitez has been fatally undermined in front of his players by Hicks’ admission that he tried to replace him with Jurgen Klinsmann. Captain Steven Gerrard has hit out at everybody, claiming that all the arguing is putting the players off their game and Peter Crouch has admitted that Liverpool’s title hopes are well and truly dead.
So tell me, does anyone think that this is going to work out well for Liverpool?
Liverpool now find themselves where Leeds United were in 2002. Overstretched and praying for the fiscal sanctuary of fourth place. David O’Leary’s team were top of the table on New Year’s Day, but didn’t win again until March. They crashed out of the top four and only a late recovery gave them a UEFA Cup spot. Chairman Peter Ridsdale sacked O’Leary that summer and, with their snouts out of the European money trough, they were forced to sell their key players. They were relegated in 2004
People keep telling me that, “Liverpool will be alright. It’s Liverpool, they always survive,” but I’ve never been particularly happy to use blind faith as an insurance policy. The fact is that this once-proud club are now vulnerable on two fronts. On the pitch, they are right up against it. With Benitez looking more and more like Martin Jol, he will find it difficult to motivate his team to their full potential. How can they play when they don’t know who their manager is going to be from one week to the next? Even if they were in top gear, who is to say that they could get past Everton or Aston Villa, both of whom are solid, consistent outfits with designs on the big time?
Off the pitch, it’s even worse. This is a dangerous time to take out an enormous loan, especially when it’s funding something as unpredictable as a football team. Just one more market wobble, one panicky response, one surge in interest rates and it won’t matter how many goals Fernando Torres scores. Liverpool will be doomed.
If anyone is any doubt about the intentions of the new overlords, then this one Hicks quote should clarify it for them.
“People think that I’ll be taking money from The Rangers (Hicks’ baseball team) and putting it into Liverpool,” he told an American magazine, “but it is just the reverse.”
How did it ever come to this? One of the finest football clubs on the planet reduced to hocking their own future in the vain pursuit of glory? Liverpool were seduced by whispered promises of wealth, they got into bed with strangers and now they are paying the price.
