1969 and all that

[Peter Cormack]

I don't like the cowardly way we have played for much of the past season and a half but I can't bring myself to put all the blame on Rafa. These are not normal times and the circumstances are stacked against whoever is managing us. In short they have no chance of achieving anything while the two cunts remain. The article by David Conn in today's Guardian summed it up well,

 

Rafael Benítez states the obvious: debt is damaging Liverpool | David Conn | Football | The Guardian

"The manager's remarks about Liverpool's finances may not be earth-shattering but at least someone senior is acknowledging the truth

Rafael Benítez says Liverpool are in debt: shock, astonishment, clear the back page. The manager says Liverpool must reduce this debt and so do not have millions of pounds to spend buying players: astonishing and extraordinary.

 

Benítez has shocked us, in truth, with a statement of the bleedin' obvious but it is noteworthy somebody in his position has finally come out and said it. Being taken over by two businessmen, who loaded on to the club the £174m they borrowed for their takeover, was not, after all, the most glorious event in the history of a great club.

 

When Tom Hicks and George Gillett arrived, they portrayed themselves as the friendly and benevolent Americans, smiling humans compared with the odd-seeming Glazers of Tampa Bay and Old Trafford. They were not going to "do" a Glazer and load debt on to the club; they would build the new stadium on Stanley Park, which would allow Liverpool truly to compete with United; they would honour and respect Liverpool's heritage.

 

Yet a skim-read of the official documents that accompanied their takeover blew away their claims to benevolence. They were in fact visiting the same awful trick on Liverpool as the Glazers did at Manchester United, just in a lower key.

 

The Glazers bought the world's richest and arguably most glory-drenched football club for £831m, of which £559m was borrowed, £275m of it from hedge funds at eye-watering interest rates. The club, which had Sir Alex Ferguson, his conveyor belt of talent, the resources to expand Old Trafford to a 76,000 capacity and cash in the bank, was loaded with the maddening responsibility to service repayment of those borrowings. In the three years to 2008 the club has incurred £263m in interest charges alone but the total debt has risen to £700m.

 

At Liverpool the debts are lower but the club can ill afford them because of Anfield's smaller capacity, not a brick of the new stadium having materialised almost three years after Hicks and Gillett arrived. Their latest figures showed the club had borrowed £313m, including the costs of the takeover, and last year paid out £36.5m to the banks in interest alone – that is Xabi Alonso plus £6.5m, gone. That helped push the club into a £42.6m loss at a time when vastly more wealth is flowing in than ever before.

 

Benítez now acknowledges this debt is a problem, and the need to reduce it has eaten into his transfer budget. The revelation simply states what has been horribly plain all along. These "leveraged buyouts" were not mystical, transatlantic, financial wizardry for which the clubs and their fans should be grateful. They were speculators' devices which smothered the clubs in mountainous, pointless debt"

 

 

Basically even if we won the European Cup every season the money would disappear in interest payments and ultimaterly into their pockets. Self-serving shit houses, I wish I could be at Anfield tomorrow in the paddock stand; while we can't advocate violence wouldn't it be terrible if someone lobbed a molotov in their direction, only bad thing would be that genius of the western world Moores wouldn't be caught up in it. Perhaps then they would get the message, bags of piss is the minimum they deserve.

 

The fucking world has gone crazy; two conmen borrow millions to buy a club, tell a pack of lies about it and then charge the club for the pleasure of being bought. They steal money through inflated expenses claims, starve the club of chances of success and indirectly blame the manager for that; deny having ever made the promises they have broken and still expect to be welcomed in Liverpool. In Germany they would have been hounded out of football by now and would probably be in jail; we would be playing in the regional league, as would Manu and Chelsea because the rules here don't allow what goes on in the UK. What would Shanks have made of it? He would be shouting from the rooftops about these shithouses; everyone would be well aware of what is going on. I applaud SOS taking a hard line, though it's not hard enough. Wonder how much hitmen cost? If we gave a fiver each would that be enough?

 

I've been a supporter since I the old fella took me to my first game when I was seven, we were in the second division then with a bunch of twats running the club, scared of spending money and happy to be minting it on crowds not much smaller than we're getting now. My Dad hated them with a passion and idolised Shanks when he came; in the end the directors had to act to change things, ultimately they were supporters, greedy bastards but they cared in their own way. The shithouses from across the sea couldn't care less- I just thank Christ neither my Old fella or Shanks or Bob or Joe Fagen lived to see the state we're in now, it would have broken them. What is worst is the feeling of absolute powerlessness; the people have no say or influence anymore.

 

 

40 years ago this week we beat Everton 3-0 at Goodison, I was in the Park End, I'll never forget Sandy Brown's home goal; that was the highlight of the season, for most of it we were crap, reminds me of this season in a lot of ways, poor players got into the side, Steve Peplow, Dereck Brownbill, Dougie Livermore to name but 3, Alec Lindsay was even played up front; a run of injuries affected almost all the decent forwards, there was a lot of criticism of Shanks believe it or not he had made some poor buys and the team was apparently going nowhere; I think one of the worst United sides of all time beat us 4-1 at Anfield, as did Everton, 2-0. They won the league playing great football with a midfield that was wonderful to watch. It was the worst season imaginable at the time and a lot though it was the end of Liverpool as a force. Deja Vu?

[Baldi]

Excellent Post Peter

[Gonzo]

That's a great read mate - cheers.

[Dirty Parry]

does the debt stop him playing aquilani when he was fit for the last month. does the debt make him play shithouse tactics as well. fuck off blaming the style of play and results on the debt. we had a bigger debt on us last season. didnt see that stopping us challenging for the title then, did you?

[The Chief]

It's fucking heartbreaking alright, as was that season, the arrogance of the (not so bitter back then) blue twats was fucking galling, that was back around the time I started truly fucking despising the bastards.

[dennis tooth]

We won't be sold until the club has been forced to pay for itself by the Americans.