The OFFICIAL Liverpool Supporters thread

[nrico2006]

He's scored more goals than

Nani, Anderson, Carrick, Hargreaves, Fletcher, Scholes and Giggs combined - they've got 6 goals all season - and Giggs has 3 of them

the stats are there

not bad for spending 40-odd million

Hargreaves, Scholes and Carrick have been out for substantial periods this season, and their overall contribution from midfield has been far greater than Benayoun - clearly evident in the Liverpool game.  Sure Ronaldo has more goals than Mascherano!!  Midfielders aren't measured on their goals. 

[EC Unique]

Scoring goals hasn't been our biggest problem. Conceding them is. And I'd blame a huge part of this on Agger being out.

Is this really true? Only one team has conceded less goals than Liverpool(16).... Utd(11).  The difference is that Utd have scored 46 where Liverpool have scored 37. 

Liverpools problem is that they have drawn 10 of their 22 league games this year.(more draws than any other team in the premiership)

[heganboy]

Interesting piece in the Guardian:
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/01/23/prospectors_for_gold_leave_liv.html

A couple of years into the Premier League's brave new billionaire owners adventure and we have now seen the most surreal protest movement ever: Liverpool fans so rooted in tradition that their rallying call is Reclaim The Kop, chanting for their club to be taken over by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, dynastic ruler of Dubai.

Yet while the Anfield mood was summarised gruffly by some on the great former terrace this week as: "Get the Yanks out, get the Arabs in," Liverpool's current owners and their proposed bankers are adamant they are not departing the gold rush just yet.

Sources close to the refinancing which Tom Hicks and George Gillett have been negotiating with Royal Bank of Scotland and the US bank Wachovia insisted yesterday that the £350m loan remains on track and they expect to complete it by the end of this week. Similar deadlines have been cited and missed before but Hicks has persistently said, despite the fan protests and re-emergence of Dubai International Capital as a potential buyer, that he has no intention of selling the club. The figures, from Liverpool's present and future earnings, are said to have been inspected and, from the banks' point of view, show that Liverpool will be good for repayment of the hefty interest on that new loan.

Liverpool fans should perhaps have been a little more questioning 11 months ago when Hicks and Gillett gazumped DIC to buy the prize club, then talked seductively about upholding Liverpool's "cherished traditions" and "enhancing its reputation." There was remarkably little Scouse scepticism then about the men wearing scarves; the pair were presented as billionaires who would take Liverpool into their new stadium, girdled by all the banqueting required to finance competing with Manchester United, Arsenal and Roman Abramovich.

The fact that Hicks and Gillett had not spent one cent of their own money buying the club, but had borrowed fully £298m to do so, was there in the black and white of their official offer document, but few pointed it out as the men were embraced.

The document itemised how the loan was split: £174.1m to buy the club itself, at £5,000 per share - top dollar - which meant David Moores, for selling his 51.5% shareholding, was paid almost £90m. A further £11m was borrowed to pay banks and other advisers their fees. The loan also absorbed Liverpool's own debt, then £44.8m. The rest, £70m, was borrowed to keep the stadium project alive and "provide working capital".

That means money for the club to spend, so last summer, when Hicks and Gillett were again praised for "putting their hands in their pockets" to back Rafael Benítez with £26.5m to buy Fernando Torres and £11.5m for Ryan Babel, that was, in fact, also borrowed money. Interest was payable at 1.5% above banks' standard rate, which has been over 5%, and the £185m to buy the club and pay the fees is formally repayable by February 5, a week on Tuesday.

Hence the moves to replace the 12-month £298m with a new loan, of up to £350m, with interest and additional money for the stadium. Arguments began within Anfield about whether Hicks and Gillett were about to "do a Glazer" and load that debt, their own, on to the club itself. In their offer document, Hicks and Gillett said they had personally guaranteed the loan, and payment of the interest "will not depend to any significant extent on the business of Liverpool."

But then, in an interview with Lawrence Donegan for this newspaper last May, Hicks said for the first time that the pair would indeed use the profits made by the club itself - from the fans, essentially - to pay their interest.

"Hopefully the club will have extra cash flow so they can pay us a dividend to do that," Hicks said. "If they don't, then it will come from our pockets. But the club will have to have profits sufficient to pay those dividends."

As negotiations began with Royal Bank of Scotland and Wachovia, Gillett and Hicks are understood to have intended the full new £350m loan, to fall on the club. The chief executive, Rick Parry, and Moores, the former majority shareholder, argued vehemently that it should not.

Hicks and Gillett are understood to have agreed with that finally, and the proposed new deal will see the cost of buying the club and the fees, £185m, secured on the holding company. Called Kop Investment, with a nod to the tradition Hicks has so lauded, the company is registered in the US State of Delaware, and owns the great football club via another Kop company, registered in the tax haven of the Cayman Islands.

The banks sent accountants in to inspect Liverpool's projected future earnings from tickets at 45,362 capacity Anfield, from the Premier League's bulging TV deal which so attracted Hicks in the first place, Champions League revenue, sponsorship and merchandising - and the banks are understood to have been satisfied the club will make enough to service a £350m loan. So despite the furore inflamed by Hicks' glaring admission that he and Gillett talked to Jürgen Klinsmann about the not-vacant manager's job, and DIC's interest in taking the club over, the banks and Hicks are maintaining that the refinancing will happen.

Gillett and Hicks are believed to have committed to putting in around £40m cash between them - their first actual spending on buying Liverpool - and providing substantial personal guarantees to secure the lending. But the fact that the £185m will be secured on their Kop group does not mean the club itself will not pay the interest. It could still be required to pay a dividend out of its profits as Manchester United are to the Glazers' holding company to service £525m of debt taken on to buy the club.

Hicks is, as he has stressed, a businessman, and it has seemed inconceivable that he would willingly sell now to DIC without a huge profit, which the Sheikh's private equity investment corporation is not prepared to pay. If the refinancing does go through, Liverpool will walk on, to a further £400m it will cost to build the dream new home on Stanley Park. A large proportion of that, possibly £300m, will need to be borrowed, secured on naming rights, sponsorship, Emirates-style entertaining and keenly judged ticket price increases, added to the £350m already loaned. That all adds up to a lot of debt, to finance an ambitious future.

Everton, meanwhile, are planning their move to a new stadium in Kirkby part-financed by Tesco, a cut-price deal which was backed by a majority of fans, but about which nobody seems overjoyed. Liverpool City Council would like all this instability to open up renewed discussions about a shared stadium, for which the costs could be divided up, but in bloody-minded L4, that remains way out of the question.

Such are football's mad loyalties in the 21st century, with Liverpool fans calling on Dubai International Capital, about whose plans little is known, to buy their club, but who would not countenance sharing a ground with their grand old neighbours from across the park.

Reds in the red

£298m Borrowed by the US businessmen George Gillett and Tom Hicks to buy Liverpool last year

£89.6m Paid out of that sum to David Moores for his 51.5% shareholding

£350m Due to be borrowed to refinance that loan

7% Approximate interest payable on the original loan

£300m Projected further loan to build Liverpool's new stadium

[Silky]

Aye but its still hard to take from a[ Edited by Mod 3 - There are clear rules about the childish name calling between Liverpool and Man U fans especially. This is not on. Silky, you are now on a warning].
[/quote]

I'm on a warning so I have to be careful what i say.

That article from the Gaurdian is very worrying. How long before the club has to make a profit by selling players in order to pay a dividend to service the loan? Basically the servicing of the loan is now number one priority for the club.

If we miss out on 4th place are we completely fecked like Leeds?  When these yanks arrived we thought there was light at the end of the tunnel - now it looks like a train coming towards us!

[AZOffaly]

They are now in the same situation as Manchester United were put in by the Glazers. Trouble is Man Utd are 10 years ahead of Liverpool in terms of the first team, and also in terms of marketing. If Liverpool fail to become successful on the field consistently, this could be a vicious circle and a recipe for disaster.

United have managed to be successful, so they are avoiding their own doomsday scenario at the moment. If that changes for whatever reason (sell Ronaldo, Fergie retires, etc etc) United could also pay the price on the pitch. As I say though, they have a cushion LFC doesn't have.

[Silky]

The main cushion is they have a modern stadium and we don't.  If we didin't have to borrow further for the stadium we would be just about ok. If we do borrow more and it all goes tits up we could do a Leeds.

I'm not a gambler and that's why I like the sound of a shared home ground.

[AZOffaly]

That's true Silky. Although did they have to borrow some more for the latest increases to OT? Anyway, same applies, they leveraged their debt with the assets of the club. So if the debt can't be repaid, for whatever reason, the club's assets are in danger. I think both clubs are in the same boat on that one.

[magpie seanie]

You are spot on AZ. At the risk of sounding arrogant and pompous again that's why I was ridiculing Liverpool fans welcoming of their Americans and their criticism/mocking of United fans opposition to the Glazers.

[AZOffaly]

You were right Seanie although, to be fair, the Yanks at Liverpool said they were not going to indebt the club for the new stadium. They lied apparently.

[Gabriel_Hurl]

Sissoko Deal Done, Official Confirmation On Sunday

Juventus have agreed a deal to sign Momo Sissoko from Liverpool for €13m and the transfer will become official this Sunday, according to the Gazzetta dello Sport.

The 23-year-old midfielder has been strongly associated with the Bianconeri for several weeks now, with the only question seemingly being whether he would arrive in Turin this month or in June.

Sissoko will touch down in Turin on Sunday, where he will complete a routine medical, complete the final signature, before flying back to Ghana for the African Cup of Nations, where he is representing his country Mali.

Theoretically Sissoko is already a Juventus player after an agreement was reached yesterday over both a transfer fee and wages.

Juve will pay Liverpool €13m, with €11m being paid immediately, and another €2m after a set number of league and cup appearances.

Sissoko has agreed a four-and-a-half-year contract, with an option of an extra year after this. The player will receive a healthy €2.5m a year, which works out at just under €50,000 a week.

Juventus have been desperate to sign a centre midfielder this month following the disastrous performances of Tiago Mendes and Sergio Almiron, who were signed for a combined €22m last summer.

Sissoko had the chance to join the Old Lady last summer but he rejected the transfer in favour of signing a new contract at Liverpool.

This season he has barely featured for the Merseyside-based club, and it seems he has had a change of heart over a move to Italy's most successful club.

[Minder]

Sissoko, his second touch is usually a tackle. So long.

[supersarsfields]

I have mixed feelings about him. No doubt this year he's been dreadful but he has showed in patches especially last year were he has been good. But I reckon he needs to be in a club were he's going to get playing ever week. That's why I'm not sure Juve is a great move for him. He gets badly affected by confidence. When he got a run in the side last year I was quite impressed with him. But there is definitely no need for him at Liverpool so it's cheerio to him and hopefully all the best. One thing for sure unlike the likes of Kewell he could not be faulted for effort.

[magpie seanie]

Getting €13M for Sissoko will do nothing to diminish the oft held perception that Scousers are thieves!

[J70]

He's been very, very poor this season, but with a run of matches and fitness (and some serious practice on the weak points in his game), he has excellent potential, IMO. Maybe he'll do better in the slower pace of the Italian league, where he's not rushing and thus, misplaying, his passes.

[J70]

Getting €13M for Sissoko will do nothing to diminish the oft held perception that Scousers are thieves!

Its very good money indeed, considering the year he's had. Hopefully they'll get Mascherano signed up now.