Dubai International to make bid for Liverpool FC

[Rafa Shankly]

None of us know the facts, only the speculation from the media. I'm not burying my head in the sand but I'm also not jumping to any conclusions just because of hearsay I've read in the newspapers. Christ, we all rightly condemned the S*n for the **** it wrote 19 years ago yet we'll believe anything that is said about the Yanks because it's "in the papers" so it must be true. "No smoke without fire", eh?

And NICKZS, the result tonight has got nothing to do with my opinion. I've always backed Rafa, almost blindly at times, but how can we blame the Yanks for the problems on the field? Rafa bought most of the players, he sets the tactics, he picks the team and it's his job to get the most out of them.

Is it Gillett & Hicks' fault we're 14 points behind the Mancs and out of the title race in January (again)? Is it their fault we've drawn 4 league games in a row and we're not even in a Champions League place? I've always believed Rafa is a genius and he still is - a genius at subterfuge...

how can you say that none of know the facts and yet claim whats going on behind the scenes is not affecting the team?

doesnt matter what team rafa puts out,or who he drops,we should have won the majority of games we drew because whatever team he selected was still a better team than who we were facing(on paper)

so again,how can you say none of us know whats going on but you can catigoricly state that what going on is not affecting morralle?

[bazza76]

Hicks and Gillett are running out of time
By David Bond
Last Updated: 12:50am GMT 22/01/2008

Liverpool's under-fire American owners say they are still on course to secure a £350 million refinancing deal despite yet another delay.

With the future ownership of the club in the balance, the conclusion of the deal with Royal Bank of Scotland and America's fourth-largest bank, Wachovia, will determine whether Dubai International Capital are able to launch an immediate £350m takeover bid.

Although DIC want to make a move now, they will not launch a formal offer until they have held talks with RBS, who loaned Tom Hicks and George Gillett the money to complete their £220m acquisition last February. So far Hicks has refused to allow DIC to talk to the bank until after the refinancing is complete.

In an interview with the American business network CNBC at the start of last week, Hicks said: "It [the refinancing] has taken a little bit longer than it should. But it will close by the end of the week." Despite that promise, the latest in a series of deadlines missed by Hicks and the banks, City sources told The Daily Telegraph yesterday that no deal was likely to be announced until the "latter end of the week".

The latest delay to a refinancing package promised since the end of last summer will lead to fresh concern that the Americans' plans to reorganise their debts have suffered a last-minute hitch.

Time is running out. Contrary to reports that they had until the end of February to sign the deal, it is now understood that their initial one-year loan with RBS expires on Feb 4. RBS executives are also likely to be made nervous by threats from fans to build on their protests at Anfield last night by calling for a boycott of the bank.

A spokesman for Hicks yesterday said the Dallas billionaire was confident the refinancing was on track. He reiterated a statement issued on Sunday which denied reports of a deal with DIC and insisted he and Gillett have no interest in selling the club. But it is thought that Hicks feels he will be in a stronger position to demand more money for Liverpool from DIC once refinancing is complete.

DIC, however, are prepared to call his bluff and drop their interest unless Hicks lowers his expectations.

Talks between Hicks and DIC over the possible sale of a 15 per cent stake in the club collapsed in November after the American valued the club at £1 billion, a price DIC believed unrealistic.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/mai.../sfnliv122.xml

irst I heard of that, sounds like a good way to add pressure.

[kurtangle01]

Scott, or anybody else, answer me these questions truthfully:

Would there have been protests about the Yanks tonight if we were top of the league? I think there would be. Call me gullible or whatever but I think that the level of debt, apparently, about to be put on the club, after saying they wouldn't, would have fans angry. I agree though that the press have fueled the flames and the fans, myself included, have taken the bait.

Who would have got the praise if we were top? Rafa and the players.

So whose fault is it we're not top of the league? Rafa and the players.

Who's getting the blame? I don't think anyones getting the blame at themoment because all of the anger is directed at the owners.

****ing genius...

[CharlieMansonsSquint]

The protests tonight were embarrassing. RTK makes me cringe in it's incredibly crass naïvety. The Mancs and Blue****es are absolutely pissing themselves at this club and us, the fans.

Rafa has played you all brilliantly using the uncertainty behind the scenes to hide his increasingly negative tactics and baffling team selections. Is it the Yanks who keep picking Kuyt instead of Crouch? Was it them that decided to put Crouch on with only ten minutes to go? Did Hicks and Gillett play Kewell ahead of Babel? And yet the Kop continue to chant Rafa's name...

...****ing unbelievable...

I'm assuming you're not on a wind-up here.

I think you have a point to some extent.

I do think that Hicks has been far too cavalier, perhaps, dare I say it, honest with his opinion, revealing his intention re the managers position. This, to me is the main bone of contention for most reds, we aren't used it.

My own opinion on him is incomplete. I know **** all about him, apart from that fact that he's a businessman. His goal is to make money. LFC's main goal is to win trophies, and that's where the problems start.

We have to be realistic now. LFC is a business. To us it isn't, but then we don't have £1b pounds lying around, do we?

Which is why all this clamouring for DIC makes no sense to me, there seems to be a consensus opinion that they'll definitely be better than the yanks (I think this rationale puts us on thin ice myself, didn’t most of use believe the yanks would be an improvement on Moores?) mostly because they have more financial clout, that makes sense to an extent - obviously having money nowadays means you can buy better players, win more trophies etc. But the scenario has arisen in my head; what if DIC buy us and then make some unpopular decisions/statements of intent? What then, do we get them to **** off as well? Where will it end? Will it be rinse and repeat, with the club changing hands every 5 years or so?

The sad thing is I knew this day would come when David Moores finally succumbed to the pressure of having to compete in the sickening corporate landscape football has become. And as soon as we were sold to a foreign businessman or consortium, who are only in us to make money like DIC and the yanks are, that was the day we really no longer mattered. We as fans, with our devotion, with it our money, are a commodity to these people now.

What you say about Rafa is true though. Take his performance as manager in isolation from the recent off field nonsense and to date this season he's underperformed. I don't think anyone would deny that we've been a massive disappointment domestically. He's always to an extent frustrated and delighted in equal measure, with differing results, but when he continues to make decisions, choices with players, formations, substitutions and tactics which either continue to fail, or defy logic, it get's more difficult to believe he'll change his quirky peculiar way of doing things.

Has he used his relationship with us for leverage against the yanks? Of course he has. I’d like to think he’s done it with the best intentions, but as with everything re football these days I just can’t be sure anymore.

[Cisseshairdresser]

Scott, or anybody else, answer me these questions truthfully:

Would there have been protests about the Yanks tonight if we were top of the league?

Who would have got the praise if we were top?

So whose fault is it we're not top of the league?

Who's getting the blame?

****ing genius...

I'm not happy with the yanks AT ALL! But I have to say you have a point there.

We can't let this problem with the Yanks overshadow EVERYTHING to the point it becomes a scapegoat and everytime we are below par we go " coz of the Yanks that!"

I think Rafa needs AT LEAST another season with some decent money, but he does have to accept his responsibiltiy in this mess AND accept his responsibility for poor play, team selections, substitutions etc like every manager has to.

Also, Stevie's comment came across to me as a desperate man using a poor excuse for a **** performance. Lets remember we were having these sort of results at the beginning of the season before any of this **** kicked of with the Yanks (Birmingham, Spurs, Portsmouth) was that the Yanks fault?

Lets keep our attention firmly on the Yanks and do what we can to get rid of them but not at the expense of devoiding the players and the manager of any responsibility for whats happening.

I could be wrong but when all the **** was kicking off down the road with the Glaziers I don't particularly remember it affecting the Mancs on the pitch that badly (Like I said though I could be wrong).

And I agree, if I see Kuyt at Anfield wearing a red jersey again, ahead of Crouch, then I will be convinced Crouchy got caught knocking off Montse!

[robbielad9]

Scott, or anybody else, answer me these questions truthfully:

[I]Would there have been protests about the Yanks tonight if we were top of the league? Yes, if we about to be burdened with a £300million pound loan which accrued an annual interest charge of £30 million

Who would have got the praise if we were top? Benitez

So whose fault is it we're not top of the league? The 11 men on the pitch

Who's getting the blame for the financial situation? TH and GG

****ing genius...

[CharlieMansonsSquint]

Scott, or anybody else, answer me these questions truthfully:

Would there have been protests about the Yanks tonight if we were top of the league?

Who would have got the praise if we were top?

So whose fault is it we're not top of the league?

Who's getting the blame?

****ing genius...

1)No.

2)Rafa.

3)The manager and the players.

4)The owners by most. Though personally I consider the manager and players responsible.

Truthfully I wished David Moores had never sold the club, but that's another discussion...

[Cisseshairdresser]

If all the various LFC fans on all the various LFC Fori contributed £100 could we afford to buy the club as the biggest consortium ever? Although I can think of a few idiots on certain forums who could go **** a goat though!

[rushscored4]

how can you say that none of know the facts and yet claim whats going on behind the scenes is not affecting the team?

Of course it's affecting the team but who created it? Who has tried to call the board's bluff? Who feeds the media with stories about returning to Madrid or being wanted by other clubs? Who was sulking in a tracksuit?

Honestly, lads, you've all fallen for it hook, line and sinker...

doesnt matter what team rafa puts out,or who he drops,we should have won the majority of games we drew because whatever team he selected was still a better team than who we were facing(on paper)

So if we've got better players but we're still not beating teams like Wigan, Middlesborough, Reading, Birmingham and Villa yet Rafa is a great manager then we must be incredibly unlucky, eh?

so again,how can you say none of us know whats going on but you can catigoricly state that what going on is not affecting morralle?

Sorry, I ran that through Babelfish but still couldn't understand it...

[Craig_H]

We won it five times.

Doesnt scan very well does it?

[Morph]

The protests tonight were embarrassing. RTK makes me cringe in it's incredibly crass naïvety. The Mancs and Blue****es are absolutely pissing themselves at this club and us, the fans.

Rafa has played you all brilliantly using the uncertainty behind the scenes to hide his increasingly negative tactics and baffling team selections. Is it the Yanks who keep picking Kuyt instead of Crouch? Was it them that decided to put Crouch on with only ten minutes to go? Did Hicks and Gillett play Kewell ahead of Babel? And yet the Kop continue to chant Rafa's name...

...****ing unbelievable...

your definitely in the minority it seems, while I dont agree I can see where your coming from, the thing with something like this in my eyes is that at the moment we aren't happy with the yanks for a number of reasons, not just the Rafa situation, but also the 'supposed' failure to come up with cash for players, the stadium debacle so far, but the main one for me is this loading the club with debt business that they categorically stated they wouldn't do. The fellas are a pair of liars and aren't fit to run the club, nothing they do now will cause me to forget what a pair of pricks they have been.

Now that is the issue in hand and this is what we need solving asap if this means DIC coming in then so be it, i'm not convinced it'll be all rosy with them, but hopefully it'll be a change for the better. Now once that problem has been sorted, assuming Rafa is still in charge he gets 1 more season to prove what he can do, give him the cash he needs and lets see how close he takes us. If he ****s it up, then so be it, it might be time to replace him.

But until issue 1 is sorted issue 2 is going to be secondary, the fans will support Rafa to try and push issue 1, even if they don't fully support him they'll chant his name as an act of defiance, because the Yanks 'dared' to meddle with our club without our blessing. So while I don't like all this business, it's a means to an end for me, and i'll go along with whatever we need to do to get those Yanks, then we can concentrate on getting our club back where it belongs.

[Diego]

Scott, or anybody else, answer me these questions truthfully:

Would there have been protests about the Yanks tonight if we were top of the league?

Who would have got the praise if we were top?

So whose fault is it we're not top of the league?

Who's getting the blame?

****ing genius...

so in your opinion we should be top of the league with our current squad and it's all down to rafa that we are not?

imo part of the blame lies with rafa, part of it with the players and part of it with the owner. mostly for not backing rafa enough to sign better players. we need better players in january and we're not getting any according to rafa. we're having a ****ty season, we're also realizing that our squad isn't good enough. we need improvements from every one single one of those involved...

but i have full faith in rafa, and that he will deliver us glory, this is the first season i have been dissapointed under his reign, and i think it's a one off season, i want to give him another season to prove me wrong. if we **** up next year like we're doing now i might reconsider, but for now i believe that rafa is the best man for the job...

[Cisseshairdresser]

Sometimes I do think its a little weird how that during this period where Rafa is not performing to well should we say going by league performance, that his support seems to be at its strongest?

By this measure if we get relegated Rafa will become Mayor of Liverpool!

We just don't know whats going on behind closed doors do we? We just have to trust in him and support him to our best ability whilst he is here, thats the Liverpool way. Time will judge Rafa nothing or no-one else.

[Venton]

Sometimes I do think its a little weird how that during this period where Rafa is not performing to well should we say going by league performance, that his support seems to be at its strongest?

By this measure if we get relegated Rafa will become Mayor of Liverpool!

We just don't know whats going on behind closed doors do we? We just have to trust in him and support him to our best ability whilst he is here, thats the Liverpool way. Time will judge Rafa nothing or no-one else.

Good sense mate. So much bull**** flying about in smoke at the moment we should really be focussing on the basics.

[rushscored4]

OK, let's clear a few points up here. I am not pro-G&H, far from it. I'm not even pro-DIC as I don't know enough about them other than they are ruthless businessmen and would do anything to get what they want.

Also, I am definitely not anti-Rafa Benitez.

All I am saying is that there are better ways of making your point rather than protesting like this in public. Only a week or two ago Hicks was condemned by many for "doing his dirty washing in public" and how it wasn't "the Liverpool Way". Well WTF are RTK doing?!

Finally, I am not blaming Rafa entirely for our poor recent results but what better way to paper over the cracks than to deflect the criticism through your mates in the media onto other people? I bet Mourinho wishes he'd done that now. And Jol. And especially Allardyce...

Believe me, no-one on this site is more passionate about our great club than me but sometimes you have to think for yourself and not just follow blindly like the rest of the sheep...