At least they've spet our names right: Liverpool co-owners George Gillett and Tom Hicks (left) view the Anfield hate banners
Tottenham boss Harry Redknapp has leapt to the defence of under-fire Liverpool owners George Gillett and Tom Hicks.
With the Americans on the verge of being forced out of the club by countryman John Henry's New England Sports Network, Redknapp insists they did all that was required of them, pumped millions of pounds of cash into the club and do not deserve the hatred of the Anfield fans.
Instead he lays the blame for Liverpool's current crisis - they have debts of around £280m and are third bottom of the Premier League - on the players and the manager who brought them there.
Redknapp said: 'You must have a screw loose if you buy a club. The whole Liverpool debate centres around a team of top-level players that is not performing at its best - a temporary problem.
'The only issue is a lack of confidence among the squad - but it will soon turn around. And in all of this, I have utmost sympathy for the Reds’ owners, George Gillett and Tom Hicks.
'All they seem to have done is plough a fortune into the place and they stand to lose a fortune when they sell it. But, for all that, all they get is grief week-in, week-out.
'It’s not their fault the expensive players who have been brought in are not performing as they should be.'
Redknapp points to huge-money signings Fernando Torres and 'costly flops' like Alberto Aquilani signed by previous manager Rafa Benitez as proof that Hicks and Gillett had deep pockets and faith in their manager.
Shut the door on your way out: Alberto Aquilani was a 'disaster' for Liverpool boss Rafael Benitez
He added: 'Aquilani cost £20million and has been a disaster - but is that the owners’ fault?
'It’s not often you’ll hear a manager stick up for a chairman or chairmen but I’d love to know what the two Americans have done that is so wrong.
'The fact the team is in the bottom three is of little consequence and Roy Hodgson should not be sacked. He is a top-class boss and will turn it around.
'I still see them challenging for the Champions League at the end of the season. After Christmas, I believe the fortunes will change for the team and for Roy.
'It will take time for him to bed into the job, to work out who at the training ground and on the staff is with him and who is against him.'
Hicks and Gillett saw Benitez shell out over £228m on 76 players during his six-year reign and still fail to bring the Premier League title to Anfield.
Of this around £150m was funded by the current American owners.
And Redknapp added in The Sun: 'Alan Sugar was chairman of my club, Tottenham, for 10 years but now says there is absolutely no chance he would ever do it again. And who can blame him?
No reward: Hicks and Gillett pumped millions into Liverpool but were reviled by the fans
'Would you want to put up with banners slagging you off? A barrage of stick from fans every week when all you’ve done is thrown away lots of your money? Neither would I.
'Ownership struggles, with potential takeovers, have little effect on the squad. They don’t give a monkeys who owns a club. They get paid their wages and go out to entertain the fans and play some football.'
Very true.
The signings were poor and crap.
That hegemony probably explains many Liverpool fans’ assumption that, in football matters, they have a right to a better viewpoint than the rest of us.
On Merseyside the outcry has swelled to include the nonsensical allegation that the Royal Bank of Scotland has some responsibility for the club’s present debacle.
Since when does a lender take responsibility for footballing decisions? One talk-show caller pointed out that publicly-owned RBS has Liverpool fans as shareholders. Yes, it does, but it has millions more who are not and who would undoubtedly object to one club being given special treatment.
The latest act in this farce is the refusal of the owners to leave quietly and without taking the usual profit that investors rightly expect when they trade shares.
Americans George Gillett and Tom Hicks are likely to fail in their legal bid to block any sale on the basis that the board of directors are failing in their legal fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of the shareholders.
This is a difficult argument to win as it depends on them being able to show that the proposed acceptance price is demonstrably undervalued. The argument that usually prevails is that a company is worth what someone is willing to pay for it, not what shareholders think they should.
Since the Americans bought Liverpool in 2007, they have made available close to £170 million to spend on new players, compared to Manchester City (£426 million), Tottenham Hotpsur (£177 million), Manchester United (£142 million), Chelsea (£112 million) and Arsenal (£71 million), according to figures from Transfer League.
Whatever the Americans have done and however it was financed, the fact is that Liverpool have not been kept short of money to buy players.
The issue of net transfer figures does not alter the fact that only two clubs have paid out more and the club’s present position of 18th in the Premier League, in the relegation zone, is not the fault of Gillett and Hicks.
It is the fault of the scouts, former manager Rafael Benítez and anyone else involved in player acquisitions. That amount of spending should not leave a club in the relegation zone and the members of the fraternity 'In Rafa We Trust’ were misguided in their support of the now departed Spaniard.
The legitimate complaint against the Americans, that they have not financed a new stadium, is the only one that holds water. However, even this betrays a lack of business scrutiny back in 2007 when few supporters pointing out that the wealth of Hicks and Gillett was not liquid. In normal business circles, the promises of expansion would have been scrutinised properly to see where the money would come from.
The recent announcement that a bid from New England Sports Ventures LLC has been accepted threatens to repeat this lack of scrutiny.
NESV has within its portfolio the Boston Red Sox baseball club, a baseball park in Boston and a sports marketing agency. None of these interests is easily liquidated. They may be assets against which banks will lend, but that is the same position as before, it is just a different set of assets.
Much has been made of the personal wealth of the figures behind NESV but they have not pledged any personal spending and anyway that would again depend on the willingness and ability to turn capital into cash; the only alternative would be to use equity as collateral for borrowing.
It is said that the Red Sox have done well under NESV’s ownership and that the key to their success is leaving the baseball decisions to the people that know baseball. They do not interfere with the every day running of baseball operations.
Additionally it is said that the brand has been developed and scouting systems have been improved.
In reality, the success is more likely due to the fact that they own a large stake in the regional sports network that carries the bulk of its games and annually generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. New England Sports Network, the network cable arm of NESV has a subscriber base in New England of about 3.8 million.
One view in an American business publication is that the Red Sox are a media company masquerading as a professional baseball team. The money the network pumps into the team is one reason the Sox are able to pay for top baseball talent and finish at or near the top of the standings year after year.
Structured properly, the cable operation is also a way to shield earnings from baseball’s revenue-sharing system.
The size of the United States and regionalisation of broadcasting enables NESV to generate this money but it cannot do that in England as Liverpool’s television rights are ceded to the Premier League.
It may leverage broadcast rights to the club’s American fans but whether this is possible, and how much it might produce, is very difficult to predict and it certainly is no basis for budgeting for a new stadium, a raft of new players and a bright new future.
The Red Sox made a profit of about £25 million last year but is it likely that club will pass any of this to Liverpool and what happens if the Red Sox make losses?
What all this points to is more borrowing. Unless personal cash is introduced for development or there is a rights issue (which will be resisted because it dilutes the value of the original equity) it may be from frying pan into fire.
Liverpool fans cannot complain now; the right time to protest was in 2007 when David Moores was urging his fellow shareholders to sell to the Americans.
now i wonder how he managed to win them the european cup lol
when h&g arrived, lfc's debt was £44.1mil
the debt of £280mil now is due to the snowballing interest - interest of the £174mil h&g used to buy the club (£54.9mil interest for 2010)
£50mil of the debt was for the stadium. £50mil expenses, and no stadium to speak of.
rafa's net spend 07-10 was ~30mil (less than 8mil a year, and people expect him to win the league) source: www.lfchistory.net
journalists in uk hates rafa because
a) he's a foreigner (look at roy now)
b) he doesn't gossip ("As always I'm focused on coaching and training my team")
possible reasons why some fans support rafa
a) he's the 3rd manager to bring the european trophy to lfc (who's the first 2? shankly and paisley)
b) he exposed the owners since 2007 ("gimme money to buy torres dammit!"), and had been fighting a battle against them ever since. well until he left.
due to journalists in uk bashing rafa so consistently, fans opinions are affected as a result (kinda like our MSM, but that's for another topic)
look at liverpool now:
- liverpool finished 7th last season
- if liverpool ends the season higher than 7th, do you agree its roy's credit and rafa's bad?
- if liverpool ends the season lower than 7th (or lies 18th like now), do you agree it's purely rafa's fault for leaving a lousy squad behind?
oh lets look at inter now.
- inter won serie a & euros last season
- if inter does better this season (i dunno how, more points and cups maybe), do you agree it's rafa's credit and jose's bad?
if inter does worse this season, do you agree it's purely jose's fault for leaving a lousy squad behind?
fans in general have been brainwashed by the media to believe rafa's bad. if you agree with the liverpool scenario above but find the inter scenario a pile of bull*, you're one of those brainwashed, no matter you admit it or not.
me? i read and form my own conclusions. and here's one thing i noticed (which most rafa-haters refuse to see)
- liverpool made rafa leave
- rafa went on to manage 2009 champions of italy & europe
- liverpool hired manager of fulham as replacement
Hey they didn't have to give money to rafa to spend if they didn't want to 
Just look at randy lerner....sure they'll get branded as being unambitious by pool fans but that's not as bad as now....
Whatever happens this season and where they end up on the table, I would say to me it's 10% Rafa and 90% Hodgson. Cos Rafa is gone already so blaming him is unfair as Hodgson have a full season in charge, so no excuse here...
By Piers Morgan
What a mess: But are the players more to blame than the owners?
You'll never walk alone, goes the legendary Liverpudlian rally-cry. Oh really? Try telling that to George Gillett and Tom Hicks. Or to Roy Hodgson for that matter. It’s hard to imagine a more lonely place than the one currently being occupied by those three guys.
The first two pumped £144million into the club and will lose the lot. The latter is one of the most gifted managers in the game but will almost certainly now lose his job.
Running a football club these days is like walking through the minefields of Angola — you might get lucky but you probably won’t.
Yet the people who are really to blame for Liverpool’s shocking slump this season are the ones who the fans will cheer to the rafters at the next game — the players.
I tipped Liverpool to win the League last year, such was the apparently incredible strength of their squad on paper.
They didn’t and never looked likely to. But they looked positively brilliant compared to the diabolical shambles that is unfurling in this campaign.
The home defeat against Blackpool was one of the most dire, embarrassing and shameful displays I’ve seen by a Liverpool side in decades.
And given the pitiful performances that had preceded it, that’s truly saying something. It disgraced the memory of Shankly and Paisley, Keegan and Dalglish. There was no heart, no passion, no sense of anyone caring if they won or lost.
And as for the technical side, there are pub teams in Bootle who play better than that. But once the blame game started, all attention was autofocused on the manager, Hodgson, and the hapless owners, Gillett and Hicks.
As if they were the ones who’d been on the pitch for 90 minutes kicking the ball like a bunch of Mogadon-dulled aardvarks. What exactly have those three men done so wrong?
The two Americans have poured significant sums of cash into Liverpool, buying world-class players like Torres.
And the likes of Aquilani, whose £20million fee now looks like the biggest waste of money since that mercenary little toad Emmanuel Adebayor ran off to Manchester City at the first sign of a £25m cheque.
And Hodgson has been putting out the best star-studded teams he can, injuries notwithstanding, and seen them repeatedly capitulate in the most pathetic manner imaginable.
He must wish he’d never left Fulham, where the players were nowhere near as naturally gifted but they had steel, desire, unity and a purpose.
Liverpool supporters can bleat all they like about ‘Yanks’ taking over their club and demand that Hodgson be sacked.
But what they should really be doing is calling for the heads of those players on a platter. Because most of them are not to fit to wear the Blackpool shirt, let alone Liverpool’s.
All pushing the blame again.
Aquilani is like a scapegoat sia... He didn't even have the chance to prove himself at Anfield and he got shipped out.
tats y,liverpool will never blame themselves.always looking for scapegoat.poo fans are crazy pple.they blind.blinded by 30 years of agony not winning the league.they never admit tat their team,liverpool sucks!!and sucks big time!!!!!!!!when they sign joe cole on free transfer,everyone rejoiced.his captured enuff to win liverpool its 1st league title after 30 years.how naive!!!
Originally posted by Y_Shun:All pushing the blame again.
Aquilani is like a scapegoat sia... He didn't even have the chance to prove himself at Anfield and he got shipped out.
LOL,
That's what they are good at ... Just like their motto... You'll Never Walk Alone... so they can't blame themselves as it means walking alone... so push the blame so that they'll have someone to walk with... =P
some guys just need wiki before they are able to post in this forum, and worst still they will keep saying what Grant did was very good and Rafa was only to be blame for 10%... agree that Roy didnt do a good job, but hey mind you, Rafa took them to 7 place last season and that is good??? give me a break pls if Grant is that good than his team should be up there with the big boys liao...
or rather what if SAF or whoever you think is good come manage our Lion and see if they can get us to the world cup??? always full of crap!!!!
Originally posted by Saltiga:some guys just need wiki before they are able to post in this forum, and worst still they will keep saying what Grant did was very good and Rafa was only to be blame for 10%... agree that Roy didnt do a good job, but hey mind you, Rafa took them to 7 place last season and that is good??? give me a break pls if Grant is that good than his team should be up there with the big boys liao...
or rather what if SAF or whoever you think is good come manage our Lion and see if they can get us to the world cup??? always full of crap!!!!
Still can't get over getting your ass kicked i see... Oh well... Still can't belief one can self contradict even with such a short statement... lol. Oh man, it's like a super own goal... lol...
"if Grant is that good than his team should be up there with the big boys liao... or rather what if SAF or whoever you think is good come manage our Lion and see if they can get us to the world cup??? "
Yes, I said 10% and I was being kind only. Please read carefully, cos I was only referring to this season where Rafa is long gone and Roy have a season right from the start. So it's unfair to blame Rafa anymore as blaming him is only an excuse. It's like when Harry took over Ramos at Spurs 8 matches into the season and immediately they started doing well... So the credit should go to Ramos or Harry?
For me I like to think it's Harry, maybe it'sRamos for you? lol...
Originally posted by Saltiga:some guys just need wiki before they are able to post in this forum, and worst still they will keep saying what Grant did was very good and Rafa was only to be blame for 10%... agree that Roy didnt do a good job, but hey mind you, Rafa took them to 7 place last season and that is good??? give me a break pls if Grant is that good than his team should be up there with the big boys liao...
or rather what if SAF or whoever you think is good come manage our Lion and see if they can get us to the world cup??? always full of crap!!!!
Your argument is full of flaw.
1. Grant did a reasonable job at Chelsea. He led Chelsea to a 16 match unbeaten run, signed Anelka, Ivanovic, finished runners-up in the league, went to Champions League Final (something Mourinho is unable to achieve with Chelsea) and League Cup Final in his only season at Chelsea. Grant completed his period as Chelsea manager without losing a single home game in the Premier League.
Pompey was in a mess last season and what Grant did was gentleman, he stayed on despite all the off field problems. 9 points were deduction for entering administration and quite obviously, the club find it hard to survive at the top. People like Martin O'Neill (left Villa with no official reason given just days before the season start), Steve Coppell (leaving Bristol after only 4 months in charge, citing retiring as reason and the lack of passion). And he led Pompey to the FA Cup final!
West Ham's ownership has been in a mess since they accepted Eggert Magnusson's Icelandic Consortium takeover in 2006. The club was like Pompey, who was bought over by a fake shiekh who does not have millions as spare change.
Despite the club taking six points from their first three games, Alan Curbishley, then manager of Hammers, was unhappy with the club's transfer policy after key players Anton Ferdinand and George McCartney were sold without his permission. He then resigned from his post.
The owner went burst, the club was sold to Gold and Sullivan, made a hasty decision in employing Zola who has not even achieve the UEFA A Managing licence. The results showed and Zola was fired at the end of last season. Zola was dealt another blow by the board when he revealed he had not been consulted over a bid for West Brom midfielder Graham Dorrans or about Sullivan's announcement the entire squad was for sale except midfielder Scott Parker.
So with so many off field problems so similar to the ones he had at Pompey, can Grant still be expected to push Hammers beyond relegation battle? I'd be surprise if West Ham can beat the drop.
2. So you're saying that Rafa brought down Liverpool single-handedly and Roy shouldn't be blamed as much? Lets take a look at a different angle: Did you praise Rafa or Houllier when Liverpool won the Champions League in 2005?
Did you remember Houllier brought Liverpool to a mini treble in League, FA and UEFA (Europa as it was known as then) Cup in 2001? Despite that, Houllier will be always remembered as the guy who believes "we have turned the corner"?
Roy Hodgson was given the entire pre-season to get Liverpool back on their feet. But don't you agree that he was running Liverpool like Fulham? The calibre of players he signed was more suitable for mid table teams. He sold Mascherano and got Poulsen and Meireles. He released Aurelio only to resigned him and bought Konchesky. And of course a certain Joe Cole. I must admit, i thought Liverpool had a steal when Cole signed but he was so bad that i'm actually glad United took Owen in instead of Cole.
Originally posted by Saltiga:some guys just need wiki before they are able to post in this forum, and worst still they will keep saying what Grant did was very good and Rafa was only to be blame for 10%... agree that Roy didnt do a good job, but hey mind you, Rafa took them to 7 place last season and that is good??? give me a break pls if Grant is that good than his team should be up there with the big boys liao...
or rather what if SAF or whoever you think is good come manage our Lion and see if they can get us to the world cup??? always full of crap!!!!
KNN CCB!!! 7THPLACE FOR LIVERPOO NOT ENUFF??CHH BYEEE!!!U EXPECT LIVERPOO BE CHAMPIONS ARH??WAIT LONG LONG LAR.7TH PLACE IS CONSIDER HUGE ACHIEVEMENT FOR LIVERPOO.ITS LIKE WINNNG THE WORLD CUP.U SHOULD BE HAPPY IF POO FINISH 18TH THIS SEASON.
