HBenn

We bought a few in 2018 didn't we? Maybe wishful thinking but perhaps the leak regarding investment is also a message to potential new players that the club, by one means or another, will be investing to rebuild. Neil Jones was saying that feeling is that it's most likely to be third party investment. Maybe agents and players are starting to think our owners don't invest and with us dropping off are saying they are reluctant to come here.

Yes it is. Hopefully whatever is in the offing happens sharpish. I don't get why FSG would let this go public if they didn't expect it to get tied up within a matter of days. Whatever Klopp or Lijnders says it is an unwanted distraction and the opposite to how FSG have always worked.

Thanks for the info! He is saying Dubai are back in for us but then some guy, followed by the club and SOS, has just posted up a pic of a Qatar flag and the club logo saying done deal. Hopefully this will be all over quickly. I cannot stand weeks or months of this crap.

Think FSG are the only ones feeling like they have won the lottery this week.

Anybody on here know much about an "LFC Approved" guy on twitter. He predicted the Arthur transfer the day before it happened, said we were in for Caciedo right before the end of the window. He said we were up for sale last month and is now saying he thinks final offers have been made for the club. Don't know if he has connections, is he just a chancer?

It won't always be much consolation on a Saturday afternoon if we are getting beat but I think it would ruin everything about the club if we sold it to shady owners but got loads of money in return. Trying not to be too melodramatic about it but what goes on at Anfield on a big night is so great and people are in awe of it because it's real. It's honest, it's raw passion. The Roma game, the City game - two great examples of matches where the team and the fans felt like one. Arguably because it wasn't easy but we got there through passion and that transmitting to the team working their nuts off. It motivates us not being like City. Too much money and turning a blind eye to stuff would just make a mockery of it and kill it. Especially "You will never walk alone". It would turn it into a sterile environment. You see it already a bit at the game. The corporates who aren't that interested leave their seat 5 min before the end of the half, they come back 5 mins after the start of the 2nd half (almost surprised at their being 2 Half's) and leave 5 mins before the end to cleverly beat the traffic. The game is almost an inconvenience and half the time they seem to be not sure which team Liverpool are or what is going on. I look at City when they arrive in town and I often think that if the club had our personality and character they would be unbeatable. It is not that much of a surprise that they struggle when we raise the tempo. They are a great team when everything is going well but they don't really like an atmosphere and wobble a bit when they hit a bump. I don't feel their fans and players are as united either. It just feels like a marriage of convenience. Maybe I am being too harsh. I just feel that money cannot buy what makes Anfield great but money from the wrong people could well destroy it.

Basically members of the family have/made homophobic, racist, anti Islamic comments/views. Think they probably hold some other horrible views as well. Chelsea fan groups campaigned for them to be removed from the process and they were.

In an ideal world the owners would be a billionaire - who has made his money ethically - that has reached that point in life where they want to build something for them to be remembered for (and where cost is secondary) and then back Jurgen. Basically the modern day equivalent of the geezer that said to Michaelangelo "I would like to do something memorable with my ceiling, can you help? I will leave you to it, just send me the bill". Is that too much to ask? Failing that maybe we could just have 3 volunteers to go round John Henry's house on Christmas Eve as the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future so that he wakes up Christmas Day and tells Jürgen to "spend, spend, spend". In all seriousness though, it's sad the way is going/gone. Personally, my biggest gripe with our owners is I think - with Jürgen - they could back him more and still grow the club. Having climbed the mountain we could stay there and setup camp with a bit more investment. It's a shame because they do a lot of things right.Very professional, keep things in house and have built the club back up.

Spot on

In addition, when our manager/sporting director have had decent backing (not City level backing) we have actually been the match of, if not better than City. I personally don't think we need to spend £100m net every summer but we do need to be able to spend more than we currently are.

Your probably right but doesn't it depend how much they think the price can still grow? Why is it the 3 on the final shortlist for Chelsea were all American? None of those investors are going to be treating as anything other than a business. So either there is still plenty of growth potential or all the Americans are wrong.

Newcastle under Ashley was different to us though wasnt it? Arguably any money they would spend would make negligible difference to the selling price as it made very little difference to league position or CL qualification. With us I am not sure you can say the same thing. Loads of articles are saying how cataclysmic missing out on CL will be for us. Investors with the level of money we are talking aren't stupid, it will impact what they are prepared to pay. If we miss CL next season, what does that cost, £200m? That is just next season, once that money is going to Newcastle, City, Chelsea and Utd then arguably the gap continues to grow. Investors will be arguing that. If the owners spend £100m next month then there is a great chance they mitigate that loss in revenue while also getting back the money spent in transfers. I get there is a risk that they spend £100m and we still miss CL but maybe they will see that £100m spend to likely mitigate at least a further £200m on the asking price is worth it. They probably had a good idea they were selling/getting investment in the summer and probably were a bit complacent and thought that at worst, with no investment, we would finish 4th so why invest more when it makes little difference to the selling price. Now they maybe thinking the opposite making it more likely than not that Jürgen is backed in Jan (assuming they are looking at a full sale).

Yeah, a load of billionaires decide against selling the club for a £3.5bn profit because SOS want the one offering £500m less. One thing is for sure, if they do sell the club we will see by who they sell it to if they really take their role as "custodians" seriously

Think it already impacted the summer one. Cannot believe they just decided to sell the club last month when Jürgen was informed. Interesting perhaps that Gordon wanted to wait until after the Southampton game, wonder what triggered it to happen sooner.

It was reported for about 3 weeks about those that made the shortlist of buyers before they announced their preferred bidder. Ratcliffe was a late one, Ricketts family, Broughton and a couple of others. Mostly American. Instead of keep asking me to list them all though just go and look if you are that interested. It's easy to find.

The Americans think PL clubs are undervalued. How many top PL clubs have exchanged hands recently? One. How many consortiums were looking to buy it? 3-7 really serious ones? That is a lot. Then factor in that the owner had to sell.and yet still got £4.25bn. Were all these consortiums dumb then? Or are they seeing something more. They aren't coming here for a vanity project. In the same way FSG didn't when they arrived. AC Milan are playing in a completely different league which is considered nowhere near the level of the PL now. Wasn't Origi one of their main signings?

They do but there were a lot of very successful businessmen who were prepared to pay top whack for them. That surely says something. Especially as I doubt a single one of them was blinded by their love for the club!

The only one there is the CL qualification. The squad rebuild could be paid for by some of the money received from.a minority stake. If they sold the club then it's likely that the buyer would adjust the figure to reflect the club needs investment as well. So they would lose that money either way. I would think the potential upside.from TV deals outweighs the other aspects otherwise people wouldn't be queuing up to buy these clubs at such high prices.

Well one of the people that bought Chelsea for a start said it. A number of news outlets have commented that is how the Americans look at it as well compared to their own sports teams. Why were many consortiums prepared to pay £4.25bn for a distressed asset at Chelsea if it's overpriced? How many idiots have access to that type of money? Unless FSG desperately need the cash for something else now I am not sure why they are selling now.

Why? Loads of places are saying the yanks think that the premier League clubs are undervalued. Whether you like him or not, Boehly is not stupid. There is a reason so many consortiums were happy to pay so much to someone who had to sell.

In truth, everyone is guessing. The Boston Globe are likely the most accurate. For whatever reason they want to put it out there that they are open to sell it. The more I read, the more I find it strange that they are choosing to go now. It could be that they have someone who is very interested and they have made it public to show them that they aren't the only ones in town and that they need to increase their offer. Maybe it's for a minority stake and they want to spook them into thinking that they will sell it all to someone else and the interested party will get nothing. Frankly, not sure why they would leak it now. It all seems quite choreographed. Anyone that would be interested would have received a sales pack last month and wouldn't just hear about it from reading the Daily Star. Not sure that is the way John - the recluse - Henry does things.

I wouldn't get that though. I get an investment in the holding group not going into the club (albeit I think it should) but why would anyone give FSG money and it not go towards improving the club? Imagine you pay FSG £1.5bn for 33%, we don't get CL and they say "club has to be self sufficient" and don't spend and the value of the club drops to £3bn. They would never get external investment from anyone ever again.

It's a good point. Why else would they. Like you say, why now? They aren't advertising it for sale through the Athletic are they, it's probably been in discussion for months? Part of me thinks, with their track record, they wouldn't "announce" this now without it all being close to being done. The other side of me thinks though that if, like you have said before, there is room for growth why sell now? They surely haven't just realised they will need investment to keep us up there or been shocked by our drop off. All the time they have been here they have either tried to get rules enforced to punish those who spend excessively (FFP), ring fence their position (ESL) or used other people's money to avoid them having to spend. Either they have seen the way it's going with Newcastle and City and see that with the stand nearly done, Jürgen here for a while and the team still in CL now is the time to sell or this is just another attempt to get someone else to give them the cash to be able to move them onto the next level.

Well you could make the same argument for Redbird buying 10% of FSG, what is in it for them? They obviously trust FSG to grow their investment. I don't know how it does exactly but I think Barrington Womble said something about how it could grow - relating to TV rights and stuff I think. There is clearly a perception though that the clubs have got room for growth, why else would there be such a huge queue to buy Chelsea at £4.25bn.

Our two January signings. Prefer Benson and Hedges myself.