lfc The Official Liverpool FC Thread

[Davicious X]

[MEIRELES.]

New England Sports Ventures (NESV) today announces that it has completed the purchase of Liverpool Football Club.

NESV wishes to extend its sincere gratitude to the Board of Liverpool FC for their diligence and their efforts on behalf of the Club and its supporters.

The transaction values the Club at £300m and eliminates all of the acquisition debt placed on LFC by its previous owners, reducing the Club's debt servicing obligations from £25m-£30m a year to £2m-£3m.

New England Sports Ventures is committed to winning and currently owns a portfolio of companies, including the Boston Red Sox, New England Sports Network, Fenway Sports Group and Roush Fenway Racing.

NESV Principal Owner John Henry said:

"On behalf of the entire NESV partnership, I want to express how incredibly proud and humbled we are to be confirmed as the new owners of Liverpool FC. We regard our role as that of stewards for the Club with a primary focus on returning the Club to greatness on and off the field for the long-term. We are committed first and foremost to winning. We have a history of winning, and today we want LFC supporters to know that this approach is what we intend to bring to this great Club."

Liverpool FC Chairman Martin Broughton said:

"I am delighted that we have been able to successfully conclude the sale process which has been thorough and extensive. The Board decided to accept NESV's offer on the basis that it best met the criteria we set out originally for a new owner. NESV is buying Liverpool in order to put it on an excellent financial footing and continue to develop it internationally. This is a good deal which comprehensively resolves the pressing issue of the Club's debt and should give staff, players and fans great confidence regarding the future of Liverpool FC."

NESV Chairman Thomas Werner said:

"We recognize that Liverpool Football Club is an historic institution ultimately grounded in the community and the fans. Our first step as new owners will be to listen. We want to hear from the manager and the players and those who are part of the daily operation of the Club. We will be visible at Anfield and will embrace and listen to those who have stood by this Club and who are the rock on which its future success will be built. We want to hear from the fans, local leaders and the local community. We want to hear from those who know LFC best, who have made it the best and share our desire to return to a culture of winning.

"NESV is committed to creating a long-term, financially strong foundation for the Club and dedicated to ensuring the Club has the financial resources to be successful again and attract the best players. To that end, the transaction has been structured in such a way as to eliminate all of the acquisition debt on the Club.

"In the coming days and months, NESV will work closely with the LFC executive team to listen and learn about every facet of the organisation. During this time, the new owners will begin to look at areas for greatest opportunity to increase the appeal of the Club nationally and internationally. NESV wants to once again create a culture and environment to allow people to excel at the Club on every front. During this period, NESV will also begin to examine opportunities to enhance the matchday experience in the short-term, while also carefully studying the various long-term options that may be possible."

Mr Henry and Mr Werner added:

"We are eager to commence with our plan, spend time with the organisation, its leadership, its supporters, and the local communities. We will take these steps alongside the Club's executives with a shared objective of stabilising the Club and ultimately returning Liverpool FC to its rightful place in English and European football, successful and competing for trophies."

[GoldCoast]

I feel Liverpool have jumped from fire to the frying pan if anything....but this is surely better than hicks & co

[MEIRELES.]

Who are NESV?

Watch here.

http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/video/Features/Who-are-NESV-21731.php3

Very interesting.

[Flojo]

I understand being coy about this takeover but the only thing H&G have in common with NESV is that they're both American.

Hicks has a history of f*ck*ng up clubs, NESV dont.

[MEIRELES.]

That video shows that these guys do not f*ck about business wise. Seem on point and want/do to succeed in whatever they do.

They seem like they're the types who give back to the community and actually listen to what the fans have got to say

Not even jumping the gun but the early stages things look promising

[The King]

Think the new owners look very promising for you guys but they seem a bit too perfect.

[TF S4DK]

Its not about the owners tbh.

Hicks & Gillet have handed them a great run for the next 2-3 years imo, cos now there is a new belief & trust.

BUT the REAL problem is Liverpool fans want to win the Premier League, they NEVER have.

The other clubs have a jumpstart on Liverpool, in a league that requires FANTASTIC finance and footballing management (Hodgson? Please...)

Once the realisation of the league dawns on them, that they can spend 200m next summer & still not get back in the Champions League, let alone win the title, they will start pondering like Randy Lerner.

They haven't got Man City money or Chelsea money.

Gonna take years to catch up with Arsenal's business setup.

Man Utd bring in too much money, irrelevant of the Glazers debt.

Tottenham already in the motion with their new stadium.

[Younger]

THEY HAVE DROPPED THE LAWSUIT OF $1.6 BILLION

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[Davicious X]

Is no surprise to me, they couldn't possibly have battled it out any longer. I only hope for the sakes of H&G that they have some hidden money somewhere cos they looked to be screwed Randalph and Mortimor style

[MEIRELES.]

An attorney for Tom Hicks and George Gillett claims the duo are set to drop their £1billion lawsuit.

The American pair were planning to seek $1.6billion in damages following the contentious sale of Liverpool Football Club against their wishes.

John W Henry's New England Sports Ventures took control of the Reds on Friday, put the finishing touches to a £300million deal.

Hicks and Gillett, co-owners at Anfield since 2007, had opposed that deal as the offer fell some way short of their valuation of the club.

However, their efforts to block the bid were scuppered when a High Court ruling sided in favour of their creditors, the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Different picture

Hicks and Gillett initially refused to accept their fate, though, and took their fight to the courts in the United States, obtaining a restraining order blocking the sale in a Texas court.

They do, however, appear to have now accepted that they are fighting a losing battle and are prepared to drop their damages claim.

Attorney Tom Melsheimer said that Hicks and Gillett were dropping the claim to comply with an English court order.

He did, however, say 'a different picture will be painted when the English court has a chance to hear all the facts', suggesting the fight is not over yet.

[Younger]

We were paying £770,000 a week... Thats 7 Fernando Torres's wages a week.

£3,080,000 a month

£36,960,000 a year in interests.

Now we stand at paying £0 to the bank.

[Guest Triple XXX]

how did you man feel when Hicks n them man took over the club in 07

[MEIRELES.]

Not as good as this. That's for sure.

[Younger]

how did you man feel when Hicks n them man took over the club in 07

sh*t...

WE wanted Dubai International Capital. Deal was in place.

and were given these two clowns...

Worse is Hicks came in him self and was refused, came back with the other twat with more money and was given the yes.

[Younger]

Hicks + Sports = FAIL

Corinthians

In 1999, Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst entered into a partnership with Sport Club Corinthians Paulista, a successful Brazilian soccer club team. Club directors and Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst assured the fans that a new stadium was in development, but this never materialized.

They began selling the club's star players and announced plans to change Corinthians' famous black-and-white kit. This led to a furious reaction from supporters. In 2003, after legal/financial troubles and partner infighting, Hicks retired from the company and the ownership group eventually left the partnership with Corinthians. There was no new stadium

Dallas Stars

Mr. Hicks serves as the Stars' Chairman of the Board and the club's representative on the NHL Board of Governors, and also played an instrumental role in the development and planning of American Airlines Center.

In April 2010 Hicks’s company defaulted on $525-million in bank loans backed by the Stars and a 50-per-cent interest in the American Airlines Center

Texas Rangers

In June 1998, Hicks became the Chairman and Owner of the Texas Rangers Baseball Club of the Major League Baseball’s American League.

On May 24 Hicks and HSG filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection/separation of the Texas Rangers from HSG and asked the courts to approve of the sale of the Rangers to the group headed by Chuck Greenberg and Nolan Ryan. The move was made to expedite the sale and resolve the sale prior to the MLB trade deadline and draft signing deadline

[Younger]

For those who didnt buy any Liverpool kits for this season they having a 20% off everything on the official online store.

All kits/retro... Gets credit card

[Flojo]

Liverpool used to be a team that was good at playing the ball on the ground.....smh

too many mediocre players

When was this, the 80s?

How about a few years ago when we were brushing the cream of Europe aside like it was routine?

We we're bound to lose today and I reckon we're bound to carry on losing whilst we have a manager in charge who's reaction to conceding goals is to stand on the touchline stroking his chin, his attempts to look deep in thought are unbelievably transparent.

To the people saying it's the squad, maybe you should use your head rather than listening to the pundits and journalists falling over themselves to make excuses for Hodgson because they campaigned for Rafa to get the sack. we had more players at the world cup than any team in the league yet you're telling me theirs not a starting 11 capable of putting in performances? Absolute bollocks, for the most part this is the same squad that Rafa was expected to challenge for the title with.

the quicker we get in a manager who has a clue the better because giving Hodgson money in the January window could honestly set us back a decade.

jokes aside why dont you rate Roy and who would you rather have manage Liverpool

I always say you know nothing about a person until you're in a difficult situation and Hodgson has proved this to me more than anyone.

He had this nice guy image coming into the job which was easy to maintain at Fulham because expectations were low and his decisions were rarely challenged or analysed, it was obvious that a job as high profile as manager of Liverpool was going to put him under the microscope and he simply isn't up to it. I thought he was a nice guy but in all honesty if he wasn't the manager of Liverpool I'd be calling him a c*nt.

Man management was supposed to be his forte yet in the space of a few months he's alienated half of the squad by referring to them as the b team after we lost to Northampton, made a public statement that Babel has until January to prove himself worthy of a place in the squad (despite substituting him 2 minutes after he scored and benching him for the next few games ), treat Insua like a piece of sh*t by taking away his squad number when he hadn't been a disruptive influence in the squad and actually wanted to stay...I could go on but I'd be here all day.

He insults my intelligence in pretty much every press conference by saying that the fans have expectations that are too high despite on his arrival and in his interview for the job saying that he felt he could improve on our performances last year. on top of this at every failing he put pretty much everyone in the firing line but himself (the players, the fans for protesting).

He keeps saying we're playing well when we're clearly not which makes me question his perception of what we should be aiming for as a club (which renegs on his statements early on that he could do better with what we have at our disposal than last year)

His tactics are shocking and completely dismiss the opposition - we have lined up with the same approach against Man Utd as we have against Blackpool. Basically we invite pressure and hope for a moment of magic from an individual. We have one of the best strikers in the world and he's trying to use him like Bobby Zamora ffs.

He keeps talking about how long he's been coaching (35 years in case you've missed it) at the highest level at clubs such as Halmstad and Obrero and that his coaching methods have served him well at all these clubs hence him being one of the most respected coaches in Europe, basically he has delusions of grandeur all off the back of a UEFA cup run with Fulham.

He panders to the opinion of the media despite it not being in the best interest of the team and even when it goes against his own ethos. An example would be that pundits have been going on for years about Gerrard needing to play CM despite his best seasons coming from AM & RM so he does it, consequently we've been dominated by pretty much every team we've played this season. Another would be the zonal marking issue, under Rafa we used zonal marking and were consistently amongst the best defences in the league but the way pundits went on you wouldn't have thought it. We have a squad of players used to zonal marking and Hodgson has been an advocate of zonal marking his whole career (he introduced it to Swedish football) so surely he'd use it at Liverpool? No we've switched to man to man.

On top of this we had a previous manager who was criticised for everything whether it worked or not (for example dropping Keane even though we went on the best run of our season without him) but Hodgson is a media darling and as a result all these people who were notoriously pedantic are now falling over themselves to make up excuses for our current situation on the pitch as long as they don't involve criticising Roy.

On top of this i feel bitter that I paid for the stupidity of so called Liverpool fans who fell hook line and sinker for the shite being perpetuated by the panels made up of so called experts (when in reality most of them are failed managers and ex players) when all that was required was an objective look and a bit of perspective to see that we over achieved under Benitez to start with and there wasn't one single manager who could have come in and done a better job under the circumstances. If that wasn't a big enough failing we were led to believe that Hodgson was the man to do it. PMSL

Roy is ikeable to those on the outside which is worrying in itself, you can't be competitive at the top level of ANYTHING and be liked by everyone it just doesn't work. nobody liked Benitez but i didn't give a sh*t, ask Chelsea fans if they cared about people thinking Mourinho was a prick. you need a certain edge to be a top level manager and to put it simply Hodgson just doesn't have it.

Yes emotional

Yes caught feelings

[King Poetic]

Throughout his reign so far I have not heard anyone in the media suggest that maybe he is not up to the job, but they place the blame on Benitez' legacy.

Despite the poor season last year on the most point we usually controlled games and kept it relatively tight, hence Pepe sharing the golden gloves conceding least amount of goals, after Man U and Chelsea. With more composure from Beckford and Yakubu it could have been 4 or 5 today.

[Flojo]

Throughout his reign so far I have not heard anyone in the media suggest that maybe he is not up to the job, but they place the blame on Benitez' legacy.

Despite the poor season last year on the most point we usually controlled games and kept it relatively tight, hence Pepe sharing the golden gloves conceding least amount of goals, after Man U and Chelsea. With more composure from Beckford and Yakubu it could have been 4 or 5 today.

It's a joke I'm sure if we were top of the league all these pundits would be saying 'This just proves us right that Benitez was under achieving with the players he had' but cos we're losing it's 'the players signed by Benitez aren't good enough'.

Hodgson doesn't know how to strike a balance, if the score is level or we're winning he basically sets us up to soak up pressure and f we're losing badly his approach is to stick as many attacking players on as possible.

[Black.]

10 match unbeaten streak postponed till late march :arrow:

[Guest faze]

Liverpool manager Roy Hodgson insisted his side deserved more out of their 2-0 defeat in the Merseyside derby at Goodison Park.

The 63-year-old claimed the team put in their best performance in his three-month reign in the second half.

However, he accepted if they still had ambitions of a top-four finish they had to go on a run of four or five victories.

Tim Cahill put the Toffees ahead in the 34th minute and Mikel Arteta added the second four minutes after the interval.

Asked if his side were outplayed by Everton the Liverpool boss said: "That's very unfair.

"We suffered at the hands of an early onslaught which you invariably do at Goodison but towards the end of the first half we started to even things out.

"From what I saw I thought we dominated the second half totally.

"I thought the shape of the team was good, the quality of our passing and movement was good.

"We didn't score goals and Everton did but I refuse to accept that we were in any way outplayed or any way inferior.

"I watched the performance and the second half was as good as I saw a Liverpool team play under my management that is for sure."

Liverpool have endured their worst start to a season since 1953-54, when they were relegated, and they remain rooted in 19th place.

Hodgson, asked if the top four was out of reach, added: "There are 30 games to go, 90 points to play for, so we'd have to start doing something special I suppose.

"But I don't know I would write that off necessarily.

"What it would take is a really good run on the spin but I thought there were signs in the game today that the quality of football was there.

"Who knows, we could get those four or five wins on the spin - that is what it is going to take."

Liverpool have now not won in six matches in all competitions and Hodgson admitted, with only one league victory this season, the pressure was mounting.

"We have taken six points from eight games and every game we don't win the pressure builds even more and that will affect people's confidence in the long run," he added.

"The pressure mounts but I'm not trying to use that as an excuse."

Liverpool were watched by new owner John W Henry, whose New England Sports Ventures completed a £300million buy-out this week.

Unfortunately the players could not match the performance of their legal team, who successfully prevented former owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett blocking the sale.

"The dream was we would come here on the back of new owners and win the game but there is no point in attempting to analyse dreams," Hodgson said.

"This would have been the ideal opportunity to turn things around on the back of the positive entry of the new owners and to get a result here would have been Utopia."

Everton manager David Moyes was delighted just to end a run of three successive league derby defeats.

"The smile's not come off my face. It's been a long time. I'm really disappointed I've not been able to win more derbies," he said.

"We play against a really good football club but it's not been because of a lack of effort.

"In the past we've probably lacked the quality to match Liverpool. I don't think we do now.

"We've got players of real quality who could play for the big clubs.

"Whoever scored the first goal was going to be really important and I think we always looked more likely in the first 20-25 minutes.

"I was delighted to get in front because both teams have not been scoring that freely."

LMAO, how can hodgeson says its the best youve played under him and you totally dominated the 2nd half?

loosing his marbles.

[MEIRELES.]

My club is a shambles.

No more needs to be said.

[Flojo]

Rijkaard has resigned rumours he is taking over from Roy...

[Guest Blue State Of Mind]

Hodgsons a joke, i wanted Pellegrini or Rijkard from the start anyways.