The OFFICIAL Liverpool FC thread - Jurgen walks - Stallion vindicated

[TabClear]

Looks like the league could be wrapped up at Old Trafford!

Well by the law of averages Ole has a 50% chance of wrapping it up at home.....

[brokencrossbar1]

Looks like the league could be wrapped up at Old Trafford!

Well by the law of averages Ole has a 50% chance of wrapping it up at home.....

Ole will have it won long before that game....

[gawa316]

Looks like the league could be wrapped up at Old Trafford!

Well by the law of averages Ole has a 50% chance of wrapping it up at home.....

Ole will have it won long before that game....

With the best midfield duo, most exciting attacking front 3 in world football, best tackling right back, best 'no-look defending' centre back, the best back up keeper etc, etc...easily wrapped by then

[Milltown Row2]

No no no, maybe you read it wrong, the champs play United at the start of the last month!

[TabClear]

Read this earlier. Seems like a lifetime ago but Martin Broughton is  one of the most important people in Liverpool's history. There are a lot of people who would have been bullied by Hicks and Gillette and things could have ended up very differently. Christ when I remember back to Poulsen, Konchesky and Woy's interviews....

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/liverpool-fsg-premier-league-fixtures-18802136

Liverpool given stark FSG reminder by Premier League fixture list
Liverpool decade-long transformation has been laid bare after a quirk revealed by the new Premier League fixtures

One of the highlights of the summer for any football fan is the revealing of the new season's fixture list. Even after a woeful campaign, hope springs eternal that this time things can be different, the grid of dates between (normally) August and May offering a blank canvas upon which new stories, dreams and dramas can and will be written.

For Liverpool supporters finally able to welcome a new season as league champions for the first time in 30 years, the anticipation of seeing the Reds stride out with golden Premier League winners patches on the sleeves of their shirts and beginning the bid to retain the domestic crown is tempered slightly by the uncertainty of when they will actually be allowed into grounds again to cheer their heroes on. With the new Premier League season due to commence on 12 September, the opening games will certainly be played behind closed doors due to ongoing Covid-19 restrictions and, while the Government have outlined plans to start allowing some fans back into stadiums, nothing has yet been confirmed.

With the opening Merseyside derby at Goodison Park scheduled for only the fifth matchday of the new season, it seems quite likely it will again be played in an empty - or at best, nowhere near full - stadium. But while that will be a big disappointment for those who live and breathe those unique Merseyside occasions, a quirk of the fixture computer offers some light relief for those of a red persuasion and also an insight into just how far Liverpool have come as a club over the past decade.

Because the scheduled date of the next and 227th meeting between Everton and Liverpool - before the television companies start moving things around anyway - is Saturday 17 October, which will be ten years to the very day since the Reds last lost to their bitter local rivals. It was a sobering end to one of the most dramatic weeks in the life of Liverpool Football Club and a wake up call, if it was needed, to new owners Fenway Sports Group (then known as New England Sports Ventures) about the scale of the task they faced in rebuilding their new acquisition.

The fact Liverpool will return to Goodison in just under two months time as reigning Premier League and World Club champions shows how a decade of FSG ownership has transformed fortunes at Anfield and strikes a startling contrast to how things were when they took over. As the leaves began to turn golden on the trees in the autumn of 2010, it felt like Liverpool were settling in for a long winter of discontent. The heady days of title challenges and big Champions League knock out ties under Rafa Benitez seemed a lifetime ago, even if a little over 12 months had passed since the heady days of spring 2009 when Andrea Dossena was banging in goals against Real Madrid and Manchester United, and anything seemed possible. Roy Hodgson had replaced Benitez in the manager's dug out and done little in his early weeks in charge to counter the gut feeling many fans had that he was not the right man for the job. But, even worse, the civil war which had been growing inside the club due to the toxic and hapless ownership of Tom Hicks and George Gillett was spiralling out of control and threatening its very existence.

The American owners, who had purchased the club from David Moores in February 2007, had gone back on their promise that theirs would not be leverage buy-out and had in fact heaped the cost of their own takeover onto the club. Having taken out a £350m loan with the Royal Bank of Scotland and Wachovia, £105m was immediately dropped on to the club's books, with the remaining £245m taken on by Kop Holdings, the company set up by the new owners when they purchased the club. By the end of their reign, Liverpool would be paying around £100,000 per day in interest as the threat of administration closed in.

With the owners under pressure to reduce the club's £237m debt by £100m before July 2010, British Airways chairman Martin Broughton was appointed Liverpool's new independent chairman with immediate effect in April of that year to oversee the sale of the club. Hicks and Gillett reportedly had as many as half-a-dozen bids on the table to consider as Broughton continued to put forward the most attractive proposals from across the world but the man who would eventually sell the club said only two credible options were ever on show for Hicks and Gillett to dissect.

Broughton exclusively told the ECHO earlier this year: "We had two buyers, both of whom were very keen to buy."So we had an auction. It got huge publicity. There wasn't a person in the world potentially interested in buying [Liverpool], who didn't know it was for sale. We got two keen bidders at the end and they both bid the same amount."What more can you say than that is market price?"

A proposal from Hong Kong businessman, Kenny Huang, who, it was suggested, had been given backing from the state-funded China Investment Corporation (CIC) was withdrawn late in August 2010 meaning a penalty fee of around £60m would be due for payment in the first week of October if Hicks and Gillett could not find a buyer. By early September 9, Hicks and Gillett's loans with RBS were placed into its toxic-assets division, effectively meaning an extension of their refinancing plans would not be allowed by the club's creditors. The threat of Liverpool going into administration loomed as a genuine possibility and with a deadline for repaying the loans to RBS - which stood at £237m in total - set for Friday 15 October.

Ten days before the deadline, Hicks and Gillett attempted to remove Broughton and CEO Christian Purslow from the board after the accepted an offer from John Henry's New England Sports Ventures (NESV) and the hideous soap opera playing out before Liverpool supporters' horrified eyes was set for the High Court in London. After Mr Justice Floyd had initially ruled in the club's favour, in essence that Broughton had the right to sell the club to NESV, Hicks and Gillett took out an injunction in Texas to block any proposed sale as the RBS deadline ticked into its final hours. American hedge fund Mill Financial, thought to have links to Hicks, were reportedly waiting in the wings ready to pounce but Judge Floyd decreed the Texas ruling had no validity in England and at the 11th hour, with the deadline hanging over proceedings, a deal was finally confirmed late in the afternoon of Friday 15 October.

Hundreds of jubilant Liverpool supporters celebrated outside the High Court as a new dawn approached for their football club, with the forthcoming Merseyside derby at Goodison scheduled 48 hours later barely after an afterthought at that point. By the time Sunday afternoon came around, attention was focused back on the football with new principal owner John Henry and new club chairman Tom Werner taking their seats in the directors box at Goodison Park.

Liverpool's previous match had been a fortnight previous due to an international break and had seen newly-promoted Blackpool win 2-1 at Anfield to leave the Reds in the bottom three after seven league matches, with the first rumblings of discontent at the new manager being heard with chants on the Kop of "Hodgson for England". Everton were fairing little better, having also only gained six points so far and sitting one place higher in the table on goal difference, but Liverpool's insipid performance in front of their brand new owners made the Toffees look like world beaters.

Goals in either half from Tim Cahill and Mikel Arteta gave David Moyes' side a comfortable 2-0 win which could have been by a greater margin but salt was rubbed in Liverpool fans' wounds by the manager's post-match assessment."It was a cruel result because we played so well," Roy Hodgson said. "In my opinion the way we played the game was as good as I've seen us play this season."I can't have any real qualms with my players with the performance they gave.

"I hope that fair-minded people see the game the same way. I think it's a bit unfortunate that after such a good game of football, everything revolves around the fact that Liverpool didn't win it."The shape of our team was good, the quality of our passing was good. We didn't score goals and Everton did, but I refuse to sit here and accept we were in any way outplayed or were in any way inferior." That was not the game the 3,000 angry Liverpudlians in the Bullens Road stand or the millions watching round the world on television saw, the disconnect between delusion and reality summing up how far Liverpool had fallen, on the field.The tentative first green shoots of recovery had at least begun to sprout off the field however.

Liverpool will return to Goodison in mid October 2020 a completely different entity in almost every regard from the version a decade earlier, which is testament to the vision, planning and execution of owners who salvaged the club from one of its darkest hours.

[Armamike]

Broughton played a blinder during that period.  Outwitted the 2 Yank clowns and saved the club.  Lfc fans owe him a huge debt of gratitude,  It's all documented in Brian Reade's great book on it, 'epic swindle'.

[laoislad]

3-0 win over Stuttgart today.
Maybe this year will finally be our year....

[From the Bunker]

Philippe Coutinho wins the Champions League, which triggers a clause in his contract, meaning Barcelona owe Liverpool another €5m.

5m that will probably be the sealer in signing Thiago from Bayern.

Mad!

[Mourne Red]

Might want to delete this thread now

[laoislad]

Might want to delete this thread now

Or just change the thread title maybe? To World and Premier League Champions...

[Armamike]

Settle for that.

[oakleaflad]

Philippe Coutinho wins the Champions League, which triggers a clause in his contract, meaning Barcelona owe Liverpool another €5m.

5m that will probably be the sealer in signing Thiago from Bayern.

Mad!

No longer the case I believe

[brokencrossbar1]

Philippe Coutinho wins the Champions League, which triggers a clause in his contract, meaning Barcelona owe Liverpool another €5m.

5m that will probably be the sealer in signing Thiago from Bayern.

Mad!

No longer the case I believe

Has to win it with Barca. No big odds really in terms of whether the club will or won't sign Tiago. Would be useful in bringing Phil back on a year loan though as could be set off against a loan fee if Jürgen wanted to

[Geoff Tipps]

Philippe Coutinho wins the Champions League, which triggers a clause in his contract, meaning Barcelona owe Liverpool another €5m.

5m that will probably be the sealer in signing Thiago from Bayern.

Mad!

No longer the case I believe

Has to win it with Barca. No big odds really in terms of whether the club will or won't sign Tiago. Would be useful in bringing Phil back on a year loan though as could be set off against a loan fee if Jürgen wanted to

Liverpool sold the rights to a finance house. The add ons were hedged for an up front payment.

[From the Bunker]

Community Shield this Saturday. Then two weeks then until the Premier League opener v Leeds!

Coming around fast again!