Lupin

Reading through the early versions in the news, it would appear the £60m for the stadium start which was ringfenced has now been withdrawn leaving £290m, and they have to contribute a further upwards of £60m from their own pockets to secure the refinance, not from club funds or profits, taking it down to a max of £230m - this should mean they can't claw it back from the club while outstanding debt and the terms of the refinancing are extant...this makes a sale more appealing to a buyer. Good.

Yes - and to that end I suspect money for transfers etc will have formed part of the eventual refinancing agreement. The bank will want to protect the value of the asset and may well see this as an integral function.

Most of what you have written is probably close enough, but as yet we only have the headlines so it's hard to say. Re transfers, that's a difficult one and would depend on how the loans and scheduled repayments are structured, who they have to be paid by and what stipulations in regard to the successful day-to-day running of the club may form a part of this....we just don't know as yet.

It is - in a bizarre twist of fate, what RBS and Wachovia have seemingly decided are acceptable terms for them are as good as we could have hoped for us - G&H are the ones to personally miss out on the face of it, bearing in mind how their debt is structured through their holding companies and how the indemnity lies. However, this is in reality no more than a stay of execution and they now have one year to hope that market conditions pick up enough for them to find a buyer who will give them a profit they can live with, if not what they had hoped for - I suspect in that end they will eventually be reasonably successful. They are now not ever likely to be able to build the stadium their profit margins and business plan so rely on. Still love to see the small print in this though

I think the words you are looking for are 'desperately sad'.

Exactly so - everytime Torres missed a chance, everytime Kuyt miscontrolled a pass, everytime a Gerrard corner struck the first defender, everytime Reina misjudged a punch and everytime Lucas or Babel was on the teamsheet there would be this horrible clunking noise from the directors box as the sound of jerking knees echoed around the ground.

I've been a matchgoing fan longer than you and we've ALWAYS had glory hunters just like every other successful team, as for the '80's there were as many superficial maoaning bastards back then as you'll find at the game now. Tell it like it is? No - you tell it like you think it is - no-one has any monopoly on the truth or on the perception of the truth.

'coloured'? have you missed the last few decades?

That much is true. However - to cheer you up a bit, we are going back to the Moon by 2020 with bthe purpose of colonising it (to a degree) and using it as a low gravity construction base for 'deeper' space missions, including Mars. Obama ratified his end of the deal just three weeks ago with no-one other than the Washington Post and the boys at the JPL in Houston seemingly noticing. The universe is in itself beyond our grasp, both physically and conceptualy - but there have been some brave stabs at it and there's no reason not to keep trying. Oddly, the one truly positive unexpected plus point of the Apollo missions (until people got bored of them - which amazingly they did) was the way it did make us all feel so very small and insignificant and our inherent bickering and rivalries stupid and pointless - we were seen to be infinitissimal tiny entities on a small blue and very vulnerable spec of dust in the blackness - we could do with being reminded of that on a regular basis.

This mathematically proven - equally so - and this is the headspinner - is there are more possible synaptic connections in your brain (well, not yours maybe! ;) ) than their are stars in the known universe. As for feeling small - if you accept there is no God, that this thin mortal plain is all there is and who you are and what you do in the end, in the final analysis doesn't mean a jot and once your tiny slice of time is up and you're dead, that's it for you - then it's quite possible to be at peace with your cosmic insignificance - which - cosmically insigniificant - we all are anyway whether we like it or not. Funnily enough, we'll keep on theorizing and never fully get to grips with the Universe in physical terms as neither we nor our planet and solar system (also as insignificant as we are) won't be around long enough to do so.

Fucking Wirral hippies...

The main difference between Rafa and Alonso? Rafa turned Madrid down - several times. Yes he makes mistakes - but then Shanks bought Tony Hateley and Jack Whitham - and he also often bought players without seeing them based on the recommendation of his scouts - Alec Lindsay being an obvious example - what a bastard, eh? Does Rafa get credit for signing Alonso in the first place when many here and elsewhere doubted him? Does he get credit for signing Torres, Reina, Kuyt, Masch, Arbeloa, Agger, Skrtel and on... when did we last only lose two games in a season? We're lucky to have him, imperfect though he may be. All our managers have made mistakes - some more than others - Rafa is in the 'less than' camp - and none have had to put up with the shit on his own front dorrstep or behind the scenes that he has done - some of our best would have walked away, and there would be no shortage of top-table takers for him either.

A plain what? Don't worry - probably only Juan Galsonso and ATK out hunting for Rafa's house in their Rage-o-copters.

Some of the posts on here should entitle their owners to membership of Exit...it's fucking Drama Queen central and has as much to do with reality as I do with Natalie Portman's crotch.

Babel is a full and regular Dutch international, likeit or not. Yes, you play people with bundles of talent when the chance arises and if their mindset is right and you believe they can cope. Hamill has just come back from loan so lets see what happens before going off on one and how he progresses with his return. United offloaded Chadwick because he wasn't good enough - and Nardiello, and Eagles, etc - by that arguement you're saying we should give lots of cjhances to playyers who are not good enough. And 'The players that Rafa seems to be bringing through are well rounded players without outstanding ability. Which is a shame.' That must be why he so rates Pacheco then, or Bruna, or Della Valle etc...

The press say we are looking at Crouch and Distin yet we have made no offer or enquiries according to Portsmouth - yet you believe them over Portsmouth and Rafa? Like me, you have absolutely no idea what he is thinking, who he is REALLY looking at, what money he has or anything - but he needs to refocus? Oh and another thing you and several others have gone on about. Xabi has said about the 'Madrid project' that he is flattered by their interest blah blah and all those usual platitudes without actually asking to move or clearly saying on the record he wants to join them, even if that should be his wish. This does not mean he is unhappy where he is or even that he would resent staying - that's just assumption and portraying him as having the mindset and emotional range of a child of 7. According to Rafa he is fit enough again to play in the Singapore game - so no 'keeping him back in case of injuries' given what has already happened to Skrtel and El Zhar either.

Because (and this may have changed with his recent loans) most of what you say above was far from applicable until recently. Skillful, yes - pacey, yes - vision absolutely not. He was an even more seflish player than Baros - head down, fuck the team, I'm on a run here - it was seemingly all about personal glory and as a result good situations were squandered by the bucket load and his crossing was dire. Now as I say, much of this may have changed with his loan spells, but Rafa is no mug and knows more about bringing kids through than you or I - he'll want to see him prove he's worth it and can be trusted as Rafa is team, team, team. If he's good enough and smart enough and applies himself he'll get a chance - if he's not, he won't.

If he wanted a Zlatan I would insist he resigned and one of Andy Gray's turds got the job.

Mountains. I plan to move to an old hilltop town in France when I'm done with work and am well down the line to seeing it through. I like to visit beaches, but only when they are deserted or near deserted, and often at dawn or twilight as is there is something magical about them then when all you can hear is the ebb of the tide and the crashing waves, walking along over sand and rocks contemplating life, the universe and everything. However, the idea of sitting/lying on a beach all day in the sun no matter how many good-looking women walk past is anathema to me and I can't think of many things more boring.

The Counterfeiters - very good 9/10 Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince - a lot darker and ditto 9/10 Bomber - great performance by Shane Taylor 10/10

No, he is clearly saying that we don't want to sell and at the price Madrid say they are willing to pay (they have not made an official offer as yet) there is nothing to discuss. However, if Madrid were eventually to make an official offer higher than Rafa realistically rates the player - i.e., compensation and beyond - then he may decide to re-examine the 'possibilities'. The rest is hyper-bollocks. Put it this way, the press have had him moving toward that exit so long and so often he could have circumnavigated the globe several times by now. He will join Madrid on his return from holiday - he didn't. He will fly to Madrid to discuss terms and not join LFC in Switzerland - he didn't and he did. he will stay behind and have a medical in Madrid rather than joining his colleagues in Austria - ditto. He will fly to Madrid rather than join his colleagues in Thailand - and again... He didn't play in Thaland as Liverpool have agreed a fee with Real - he had an ankle knock and trained the next day, and we didn't and haven't. he won't be joining the team in Singapore as...blah blah..and there he is, in Singapore. Meanwhile, Madrid say they are unwilling to pay the 'unreasonable' (you have to laugh) fee Liverpool value him at, but they hope we may become 'reasonable' (still laughing) and they haven't lost hope - meanwhile, they can't get Arbeloa off us either. Rafa will win this one - whichever way he decides by the end of the window.

It's a fine PR exercise with extremely little to no chance of ever getting even near being achieved.

I don't try and suppose what Alonso has been told as like you, I haven't a clue. The press have been told by Rafa (who is in charge of our transfers now after all) that he doesn't want to sell any of our key players, and he named Alonso amongst them. You don't know what Macia was doing in Italy or who he was talking to about what - neither do I. The rest vis supposition - just as it is with the media and Madrid doing their usual tapping up. Benitez quoted them a price they have made clear they do not want to pay and think is unreasonable - diddums for them. They want him cheaper, ergo he'll stay unless they decide to pay what.benitez wants, which seems very, very unlikely.

No they haven't - the banks want that in cold, hard cash, not guarantees or letters of credit - that's why the great Hicks and Gillett firesale has been in full swing.

There are a few rumours doing the rounds that the reason the Refinance has not been given/announced yet is beacuase H&G, the banks and some unamed as yet third party - supposedly Middle-eastern are in advanced talks. Probably complete bollocks.