JustTosh

Maybe you’re spot on here, your figures being speculation of course. Maybe they did only have a short term interest in the first place. However, something didn’t go according to plan. The finance market and a very stubborn manaher who just won’t obey being obvious problems. The fact is they’ve borrowed a lot of money. To me they seem desperate to load that debt onto the club. If successful they’ll be home free. Maybe they won’t get the profit they wanted, but at least then they won’t have to take any loss. Then maybe Moores came along crying out “stop!”, more trouble. I think there’s at least some reason to hope they’re sweating. If they can’t get that refinance they’ll suffer. If they do our club will suffer.

Won't happen I'm afraid. There'll be full stadium and long lines in the shop, as allways. But not all is going to be like it uesd to be for the clowns. We’ve always liked to believe the roar of the Kop would put the fear into the opposition. Maybe the roar of the Kop at least would put a feel of discomfort into the two yanks. If they’re here for the Inter game, I believe they’ll be surprised by the hostility they’ll be met with.

7 or 8 months ago Tom Hicks could, if he wanted to, go into the Kop and have people come up and hug him. If he was on his own on the streets of Athens in May, he’d have 20.000 bodyguards dressed in red. Now, if he ever decides to go to Anfield on a match day again, he’d have to be very careful. He’ll need to have his bodyguards close to him. People would be shouting at him. Inside the stadium he’ll hear songs against him. Now that the PR campaign seems to be lost for him, maybe we’ll see the true Tom Hicks. He’ll end up hating us, so I can only hope his financial muscles are deflated and pray he won’t get that loan. Dear Rafa: We all know it’s unbearable, but hang on for a little while longer, please! You can lean on us.

On the day of !the Inter game. They'll be here for that one. Banners with "yanks out" and "Leave our stadium". Then some songs: Gillette and Hicks are full of shit Gillette and Hicks are full of shit They’re talking shit, shit and more shit Gillette and Hicks are full of shit. Followed by Raaaaafa, Rafael, Rafa, Rafael…. Maybe with some luck, you'd see them leave at half time. With the pair gone, we could turn the 0-2 result at half-time into a 4-2 win ("....I've got dreams and soongs to sing....").

Any price given by DIC would of course include the club’s debt. If Hicks was to take up a 300M loan and sell the next day, he’d get 300M less himself if he sold his shares. Dear "man-with-the most-gay-avatar-on-the-internet-ever". The point is: If Hicks can find somebody willing to refinance he'll ease the pressure. Whether he actually goes through with it or not isn’t that important. The fact that he can say “no-no” to the DIC’s and stick around a while longer would raise the price. I do believe you're right, however (or am I really only hoping?), that the yanks are having problems finding anyone. They might be forced to sell. If so DIC could more or less name the price themselves. But this is only speculation. A couple of months from now, maybe we'll know.

Could be both a and b. If he's able to refinance the pressure would not be there and the price would rise. So even if he wants out it makes sense to find someone willing to lend him the refinance cash. Apparently he's been quoted on saying the refinance bit is in place. The problem is nobody believes him, he's told too many lies. My bet is DIC’s waiting to call his bluff, and then wait more until he's forced to sell at the price DIC dictates. Here's for hoping anyway. Tom Hicks!: You're pissing on us now, be aware the upwind.

There's a lot of uncertainty about everything these days isn’t it?. First of all, are the yanks here next season? To me Rafa seems determined not to give up on no. 19. He really wants to achieve that goal. I think ambition means more than money to him. I might be naive, but I do believe Rafa would hate to leave now. As long as he’s having our support he’ll take the piss from above until they kick him out.

Do you know this for a fact or is it only an assumption?

I believe the yanks really thought Rafa would resign. I suppose they underestimated the affection Rafa's got for this club. Any normal man with integrity and pride who could probably pick any job he wanted, would leave. Then again they've not experienced how deep the passion and the soul is in Liverpool, the club and the city. They're pissing on Rafa. Much to their surprise he's taking it. He just wan't quit.

.....or the yanks are forced to sell as they can't find anyone to lend them the money the need. Maybe all rafa needs to do is to hang in there a little while longer.

Means absolutely nothing. If he wants out he isn’t going to say:”I want out, I really need to, I’m desperate to sell. Please give me a big price as I really need the money”.

If they're selling, would it benefit us if the price was low? I mean, would a low price suggest there's more money available for stadium and new players? I can see Rafa's conning plan now: This year's PL is fucked for us anyway. Let's lose some points and make next year’s CL an uncertainty. Then when we've shipped the yanks back, start winning again and have plenty for strengthening the team next year.

Rafa’s been the only one standing up for the club long enough. It’s time to help out. I bet the yanks’ll be over for the Inter game. Let’s have banners showing them how we feel. I.e.: Waldorf & Stattler! You can take our money, lye, put us in debt and steal from us. But you cannot have our souls! NOW, PLEASE LEAVE OUR STADIUM!

You didn't ask for Rafa signings or not, you said:" The squad would have been much stronger if he'd kept some of the players who won us the European Cup and made them the squad players as new big guns arrived to go into the first team." I'd prefer Garcia to Benayoun myself and Baros to Kuyt. Still, the players we have now are better than those we had 3 yeras ago IMO. Maybe you're right though, Rafa's been changing too much too fast.

Garcia or Benayoun? Dudek or Pepe? Hamann or Masch (who isn't ours btw)? Cisse or Torres? Baros or Kuyt? Traore or Arbeloa? Pongo or Babel? Some better, some worse?

I’d have to admit it’s a bit unfair just to mention Cisse/Diouf. To be fair Houllier made some good transfers too. I.e. Hyypia, and I agree with you Baros was a steal (wonder how he’d be playing together with Torres? Probably no worse than Kuyt who cost us £9M). My main point is that Rafa may have bought some players who couldn’t do the job for us. Somehow, however, he’s managed to sell them without a loss. From a financial point of view that’s quite good. He’s been helped of course by inflation, but on the other hand he’s sold only those who didn’t succeed. Normally that would lower the price.

Match report: Nail on the head - as usual. "don't think the current manager can do it even if he was given the funds": Don’t agree. We’ve seen time and again a team that’s been playing great football. Recently, our games against Portsmouth and ManCity were both very good. There’s a potential in the team. What we need is consistency. Given another 18 months and a good attacker/winger I think Rafa could do it

Absolute nonsense. The big corporations tend to see things over a much longer period than that. There are huge companies who are prepared to lose money 5-6 years or even more before they start earning. And I'm not talking about the dot.com period when some considered it unprofessional to talk about profit.

Those numbers mean absolutely nothing. Rafa sold Diouf, Rafa sold Cisse, but surely you don’t say he’s responsible for bringing them in. Houllier sold Fowler to Leeds for £8M. Would you give him credit for that? Amongst the players bought by Rafa (£126M) are the ones who’s still here! (Torres etc.) Here’s puzzle for you: You have two bananas in your hand. You put one of them in your fridge. How many bananas do you have now? I stand by what I said. The shite Houllier brought us has cost the club a lot. Those brought in by Rafa has been or could be sold without a loss, probably a profit.

Rafa’s been heavily criticized on this site for his transfers. Here’s some facts: Rafa: Josemi in £2M, traded with Kromkamp, Kromkamp sold £2M Morientes in £6M – sold £3M Gonzales in £1M – sold £4M Palleta in £2M – sold £2M Bellamy in £6M – sold £7,5M Then players that might be sold: Crouch, £7M – ManCity prepared to pay £10M? Carson, £1M – Villa prepared to pay £8M? Momo, £5,5M – Italians willing to pay £7-8M? Total: Lost money on some, gained on others. Looks like a small gain when Carson’s sold. Houllier: Diouf inn £10 M – sold £3,5M Cisse inn £14M – sold £6M I could go on with Cheyrou, gems etc., but there’s no need. The big signings (£10m+) brought in by Rafa who’s still here: Alonso £10,5M – worth every penny Babel £11M – looks very promising, too early to judge Torres £18M – Biggest bargain since Keegan? The point is: From a financial point of view, Houllier was a disaster. Rafa’s been doing quite well.

To me that was more down to desperation or even panic. Throwing in 2 strikers for 2 midfielders normally means you end up hoofing long balls as there’s no midfielder to give the ball to. Then when they defend the long ball there’s no one in midfield to pick up the loose ball. It’s simply much easier to defend. If you want to make a gamble, take off a defender. Or better yet, put together a team that ensures there’s no need to gamble.

I remember good’ol Clemence complain about having nothing to do. Lousy keeper, hardly made a save. IMHO Pepe’s the best keeper we’ve had since Clem.

I guess the reason is that for the first 15 mins of the match the commentators kept talking about Gerrard as our second striker, or the man playing just behind Torres. I guess all that talking has been glued onto the memory part of their brains. The fact that he didn’t never got any attention. You were lucky, you didn't have didn’t have to listen to the bullshit.

We did play with not two but three strikers for the last 10 mins yesterday. In those 10 mins we were absolutely awful, hoofing long balls with no effect at all. Rafa knew we’d meet a team that would do everything to keep things tight and deny us playing space. To brake them down we need wide players and good players penetrating from midfield. In hindsight maybe we didn’t need two holding midfielders, but Alonso’s got great vision and ability to make a defense splitting pass to break things up. Not thinking of yesterday in particular, but overall I do think Rafa’s a bit slow changing things when what we’re trying to do isn’t working. And I don’t always agree with him when he says; “we created enough chances to win the match”. Normally, the teams above us create far more chances than us. Sometimes we get a lucky result, sometimes our opponents are lucky (like Citeh and yesterday). The challenge must be to win the match even when the opposition is having their lucky day. Yesterday I feel there was a sigh of relief when we at last got our lead. There should have been hunger to score a second and kill off the match. I couldn’t see that killer instinct. Maybe that’s why Rafa was so angry towards the end of the game? Or maybe it was because his last tactical change bringing on two extra strikers didn’t work?

Looks to me you’re selling around 1k of each issue, 8 times a year at £2,50 a copy. If you could double that you’d ease the pain a little bit I guess. 1000 new subscriptions in a world of Reds fans don’t sound impossible to me. And that shop of yours could be a potential goldmine. I.e. your “God moves in mysterious ways” t-shirt was brilliant. The offal shop would never sell things like that so you could find yourself alone in the market for t-shirts with a witty caption on them. I’ve got no clue at all regarding legal rights to sell shirts like that. But I guess you’d need some kind of approval from someone. Hang in there for a little while longer. Let’s try to increase your fanzine sales by 100%. Then at the same time rearrange your shop. I’ll come back to you with suggestions as to how we could help you sell those extra 1k fanzines. Here’s a suggestion: Let’s have a competition among the users. The one who can recruit most new subscribers by the end of the season gets to cut your hair, at a pub, well pissed and with absolute artistic freedom to rearrange your looks.