growler

yes, but the valencia and seville game are likely to move to saturday to give them extra time. I'm saying don't expect the english FA to do us any favours. they didn't help us during the treble run, or the european cup run either.

then you have the issue of tax though. also, if you can generate more than the cost of the loan elsewhere, then you would do that too. OVerlaying this of course, is that I would assume DIC are loaning the money to liverpool anyway, rather than 'gifting' it. so a better analogy, would be rather than buying the house outright, your company 'loans' the money to buy the house. The rent pays the money back to the company + interest. so for tax reasons, you are not making a profit. they would have to be lending the money to themselves. If you want to be cynical, you could say that by doing this, they can say they have not extracted any dividends from the club. Realistically however, thats the way business works.

so whats wrong with buying richards and bale? unless of course UEFA determine that scottish or welsh players count as 'none english'. Otherwise richards and baines I would think. we already have carson, carra, crouch, gerrard, warnock, with guthrie, hobbs, anderson coming in and also roque, antwi, insua, paletta etc looking like youth players coming through can't see it causing us a big problem.

how is it a restriction of trade? Its the rules of the game. Its like saying the goalkeeper is getting in the way of me scoring, so he's stopping me doing my job. no is 'forced' to compete, but if you do want to, play by the rules.

owens two best goals were the england one against argentina and the FA Cup final goal for us. as for strike partner, of course it would be heskey. which other striker would play with him, totally to support him?

maybe as an 'excuse' to justify why the stadium is a library?

the best thing to do, is set some 'game rules' each club must have wages as a percentage of turnover. the number of players in first team squad should be 'X' each first team squad should contain X number of players from home country. each club must publish their accounts annually and be a running concern. --- With the wages, perhaps some flexibility based on league position last season, number of seasons in premier league, success in europe etc.

expect most of those games to change. The spanish FA help their teams in europe, while the english fa make things more difficult. so expect the barca games to more to give them more time, whilst expect our manc game to move for tv, but make it more difficult for us.

re Bale, Arsenal have walcott, which may help them. we have elias which may help us. As it is though we have signed the argentian kid, who according to many, could be playing in the first team by the end of the season. I think we will wait until summer and see how he goes. After all, having Riise, Aurelio, Warnock and Insua is not different to the wancs, arsenal and russia's left back positions really. As for richards, only if DIC buy him for us. He's be crazy to chelsea though and can't see man city selling him to the scum for a couple of mil more if it came to it. Again, probably a wait until summer signing. would be great cover/rotation with RB.

from an investment point of view, you have two options. Lets assume you are buying a house to invest in. You can either: 1. Pay cash for the house, and rent coming in less any running costs (insurance etc), is your income, or dividend if you will. or 2. You buy the house with a mortgage, let the rent cover the mortgage and other running costs, so that when you want to sell the house, the increased value, but the fact the mortgage has been paid off, means its worth more to you. Even if you keep it as an asset. You never actually 'paid' for the house, it paid for itself. Now imagine with DIC. They buy the club, and cover the alleged 80mil debt. (closer to 30mil I think). They put a deposit in for the staidum, and maybe a cashinjection for players. They then 'lend' the club the money for the rest of the stadium, and perhaps player purchasing loans. They will then get the cost of the stadium + interest repaid to them. so instead of taking moneydirectly out of the clubs income, they are running the club as a going concern. I actually am more comfortable with this. ITs a better long term strategy from a business point of view, and gives more clarity from a financial point of view. We can view the finances of the club independantly, which is what we all want. its what the wancs are doing too. they will use the club to pay off the debt. Once the debt is paid off, the club can be sold. The price doesn't matter, because the real cost to the glazers will be close to zero. Back to us though, with regards the stadium and impact on cash flow, it will be slightly better, because I imagne the interest rate that DIC will charge their subsidiary, Liverpool FC will be a lot lower than market rates. I would think player investments will be 'gift' type investments to add value to the club. ie. if Aston Villa had 'assets' like Gerrard and Alonso, the value of the club would have been much higher. A long post, but I hope it helps.

giles barnes? not a bad shout. I think zenden will be out in the summer, with guthrie and barnes as cover probably.

I would think buy the club, and then put in 200, with 170 for the stadium and 30 for players. sounds reasonable.

I think the title is out because the top 2 are so far out. however, I do think second is still up for grabs. we can catch one of them, but not both. to expect the top2 teams to drop that many points is impossible. As a note on this though, how many points have chelsea dropped against the top/'tough' teams? I can't remember them losing to arsenal or us in a league game since boringho has been there. I remember the mancs won 1 at home, but not sure about the others. Thats the difference between champions and also rans. We could say that yes, if we beat arsenal ,chelsea and man u at home, then it will make a difference, but the reality is, that isn't going to happen.

It this day, look around the managers. no one wants to do it any more. and why should they? they don't need money. Why bother trying to manage players who make more than you did, who already think they know it all and then you get sacked for not winning everything in your first season. and this is established players! Fast forward 10/15/20 years. Once fungus, wenger, boringho, Rafa have retired, who can you see stepping up? Gerrard and Carra I hear, but why would they? Yes when they are younger they are big fans and want to stay with the club for ever. However, when they are 34, and tired of the travelling, pressures, keeping in shape, hell, they would want a few years doing nothing and spending time with their families, travelling etc. and then take something to keep them busy, like punditry etc. What we will have is more managers who never made it as players I would think more about science and technology rather than passion and technique. How long before we see a six sigma methodology to football?

nothing wrong with atomic kittens. purrr......

totally lost, what was happening on question time?

not necessarily big names, but players who have chosen us over others include Heskey, Finnan, Kewell, Hamann, Babbel and Kuyt

tony daley

Something I have been thinking about, and now that we look like we may have money, could be worthwhile. Is it worthwhile having the liverpool in south america, south africa, australia etc 'owned' by liverpool fc? It seems we are the biggest liverpool so why not? From a value perspective, I think it would be worthwhile.

would love to see madrid. we haven't played them in ages.

so if manu win the league, have they 'bought it' too? how much were ronaldo, rooney, saha, smith, carrick, vidic, evra, howard, rio? what about if we win it? will we have 'bought' it? what is the total cost of Kuyt, Crouch, Bellamy, ALonso, sissoko, Kewell, riise, hyppia, agger, finnan, reina. the problem is not that they spent the money. the problems for everyone are: 1. They bought the equivelant of the above in a short time 2. Their mistakes can be rectified quickly. However, doesn't excuse the money they got for gudjohnson, parker, Huth etc. With the money they have, you would have to be stupid to offer 5million for huth.

all managers have duds. Also, I would be happy if we signed the players we are looking at. we looked at Torres, Bale, Richards, Alves. all I would be happy with. we have never looked at Kaka/Shevchenko/galactico type players, even when we were flush.

I think people are going overboard. They will provide financial backing to the club and the security we need. we are not going to spend 50million or whatever on ronaldinho. Why? Because its not the liverpool way. I can see the same goals, and perception in place. the criteria of a player wanting to play for us before he signs will still be in place. the youth team will remain the same. the family club will remain. the big difference will be the choices. Ironically, I think Rafa was at a stage where he would pick and choose signings for next season anyway.

I would imagine it would stay at 60, and the changes would be internally with making choices which are better and not cutting any corners.

with respect, owen, shevchenko, buffon and shearer have never controlled a game. -- its not necessarily about control always. midfielders are always likely to control the game because the nature of their position. However, these players perform in the big games. The fa cup final, how many chances did Henry have? how many did owen have? yet who scored from them?