benno2

Hilarious. This is what he agreed to in April. This is all shamateur stuff, surely the court will quickly throw this out.

We were told that the Asian bid (presumably Lim/Meriton), one of the 'two excellent bids' that Broughton told us about last week, was submitted just a week earlier. How would the board be able to do its due dilligence of that bid - i.e. to check that the bidder could actually afford what was being offered - in that time? Surely this is yet another angle for Broughton / the board has to justify its decision, if indeed they need to do so.

... and to test whether RBS will actually foreclose on Friday, in the knowledge that it's not in their interest to do so with a sale agreed whereby they get back their money in one go. Presumably, Hicks sees that any delay by RBS in calling in the money could be interpreted as indefinite, giving him more time to come up with more s****.

This defence is a total joke. Against the charge of a breach of contract in reconstituting the board, Hicks argues that the Meriton bid wasn't considered whilst admitting in a round about way that it was and that the board failed to consider a meeting with Mill Financial to discuss a bid that didn't happen for another two days!

Okay, as a hypothetical let's assume that the debt proportion of this sort of transaction is low or minimal enough to make it almost insignificant with this acquisition. There has been speculation that it's funded out of a cash call on their other businesses, after all. So, if this is the case, and in your experience, what would be the financial / commercial objective of this purchase from NESV's point of view? Would it be to take dividends out of LFC over a sustained period, that goes some way towards funding the initial purchase? Would it be the prospect of a sale way above the price they paid in the medium / long-term? Is it that they expect a medium-term boon to the business in terms of future overseas internet rights and Liverpool is particularly well-placed to capitalise on this? There has to be some sort of expectation of a profitable future for NESV in this. Either that or they are serial sports / sports business junkies. I just wonder as to how they expect to make their ownership of us profitable, when it must be obvious to them that financial muscle, and almost financial muscle alone, is the near on only guarantee of success in footballing terms in this industry. It must also be obvious to them that they're up against two competitors that appear never likely to make a profit and seemingly don't care whether they do or not. In short, what's in it for them in this the weirdest of business ventures?

The sale of the asset, i.e. the club. The club's board (the one with Nash on it) cannot vote to sell itself, the way I read it.

Luis Fabiano might be available if he continues to sit on Sevilla's bench. Does he hit the fantasy transfer radar at all?

You're missing the point, this is solely in relation to the relevance of the 10 day rule with the Premier League. That was the point that TheLa was making.

Sure, but he has a point that a change in the board of that may not need to be informed to the PL.

Because before now there had been no actual, proper bids?

Same here. Yeah, I remember something along the lines of 'writs and injunctions flying everywhere' somewhere on Twitter, but nothing that substantiates that anywhere.

Unless I've missed something, H&G or Hicks alone have made no legal challenge have they? If they have, then to which court and does anyone have a link? Broughton and the other independent directors have taken the issue to court to determine that they were right to deny the boardroom sackings under law and that the sale is valid. I know Hicks' text to the BBC reporter said 'that's why we have laws and courts' or words to that effect, but they've actually taken no legal action as far as I can see. Which is telling in itself.

Legendary.

Isn't it just. It's also very hard to believe that we were more saleable without him than with.

Surely that's 3-1.

Interesting that G&H are seeking to remove both Purslow and Ayres, when surely getting rid of just one them would do the same trick, tipping the balance 3-2 in their favour. There are probably reasonable incompetence grounds that they could try to level at Purslow, given the obvious hash made over the manager's post. But it would be harder to pin something on Ayres given the strong rise in commercial income.

Which thread is all this in please?

I would imagine that Aurelio didn't get one. I guess you could regard those paid to Cole and Jova as transfer fees and do it from the fabled net spend account, or do it here. But I also missed off the outgoing Degen, which will probably be a further £2m this season.

I suspect you might be right. I just did a calculation about the rest of the playing squad along the same lines and only got our total wage bill to around £70m, whereas it was reported to be £107m in the last accounts here. I assume this bill is for all employees, so would include all academy/reserve kids, coaching staff, executives, accounts people, admin, ticket office, stewards, cleaners etc, etc, It would be a stretch to estimate the total of these to exceed £10-15m (hope this doesn't piss you off Gunga, but then from what I can tell, not much doesn't ). God knows how the bonuses work either. That being the case I'm underestimating by 31-38%, which is a lot. If player's bonuses are calculated outside of their salary and are hefty as a proportion of the total bill, then less so. This list, on the other hand, makes me think that you're overestimating, given the absence of Aquilani, Benayoun and Mascherano at the lowest level of £78k.

Okay, guestimates it is taking the start of 2010 as the starting point: Ins: Maxi £70k Cole £90k Poulsen £35k Shelvey £20k Wilson £25k Jovanovic £35k Aurelio (same as before, possibly even slightly less) Jones £25k Hodgson £50k So £350k per week, or £17.5m per season Outs: Dossena £40k Voronin £40k Mascherano £40k Aquilani £60k Riera £40k Cavalieri £25k Nemeth £15k Benayoun £40k San Jose £10k Martin £7.5k Benitez £90k So £407.5k per week, or £20.375m per year. Over three seasons i.e. the length of Hodgson's contact, this would be £8.625m which would pay for the managerial pay-offs, but leave us otherwise no better off and leave us possibly worse off if we buy a couple more players this window. Assuming this is, that the guestimates are anywhere near correct. Perhaps others have a better idea based on what's been reported. Fire away and amend if that's so.

In which case you'd also have to factor in the strong likelihood that Hodgson is on £2m per year less than Rafa's £4.5m. Depending on how the £6m to Rafa is scheduled (and I'd be amazed if it was a one-off lump sum), this might just break even, which would only leave the £2m compensation to Fulham.

I meant from the squad that's out there. There's really no point bemoaning Aquilani's loan in this thread, stupidly light as it leaves our squad for this season.

Given the obvious lack of options, what would you suggest?

He wasn't as good as Whelan, nowhere near, but I didn't say that either. And what you say there is true for some of the time, but by no means always. But he did a whole lot of running and tackling and a bit of passing too, without which that team wouldn't have been as successful. He was a water carrier, no doubt, but an under-appreciated one, which is what this thread is about. In what sense is he jammy to have put in so much work for the club and team, knowing he was the worst footballer in it, but doing the necessary week-in-week out and then not even get a mention in a thread like this? Ah forget it,