Redwire

The child molester shielding c*nt.

It's on the front page of today's Guardian sports section but I can't find it on their website.

We went out of the FA cup in the fourth round, the Carling in the fourth round and were battered by Celta Vigo in the third round of the UEFA.

http://www.ttwar.net/storysofar.php

Why was he on the bench if he is injured?

And won nothing for five years.

So you would be calling for Wenger to be sacked if you followed Arsenal?

He had a good run at the end and they won four out of five after getting nine points from thirteen games. As I said, a good achievement obviously galvanising a team staring at the abyss, but fantastic is stretching it.

He got 21 points from 18 games. A good achievement keeping them up but I'd hardly describe it as fantastic.

Not setting your sights high there are you. Roy will do better than "one of the most calamitous Liverpool seasons in half a century". Is that all you're after this season? That will satisfy you? That the new manager will do a bit better than the season's results that led to you screaming for the last manager's head.

Yeah, and they've always had such sh*t squads before then. And he's never won the Danish league, the useless idiot.

He got their highest ever points total in La Liga.

Why do the spineless BBC continue to interview Phelan after games? They should just ignore the c*nts completely, just show the highlights, no build up beforehand or interviews and analysis afterwards.

That wasn't his first game for us.

...and then you put Cole as MOM. Bizarre. Jovanovic Kyrgiakos Kelly

Nah, he was struggling when he came off on Sunday.

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He'd pulled his groin. Spoke to the doctor about it when he came off and went straight down the tunnel.

Tom Hicks has kept his shareholding in Liverpool separate from his other sports assets in apparent fear of a collapse of the highly leveraged Premier League club. Digger has obtained a corporate flowchart detailing all of the sporting interests Hicks has held through his holding company, HSG Hicks Sports Group. The chart was filed with a US court in bankruptcy proceedings against Texas Rangers, the Major League Baseball franchise that has now been sold by Hicks, in which the courts had invited Rangers' creditors to pursue other HSG assets. That order could put at risk his stake in the Dallas Stars ice hockey team, as well as stakes in those organisations' associated real estate operations, which sat alongside the Texas Rangers in HSG. Yet, curiously, Liverpool's ultimate parent company, Kop Investment LLC, is not listed among them. It is not known precisely how his Kop shareholding is structured since that company has never met its statutory requirement to file an annual return. But Liverpool's ring-fencing out of HSG cannot have been for tax or legal reasons: Kop is registered in Delaware, the tax-friendly location where other Hicks investments are held. A spokesman for Hicks did not return calls yesterday after Digger put it to him that the purpose of the separation was to prevent Liverpool's debts causing problems for other HSG assets. Despite their separation the dominoes have begun to fall. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/aug/13/tom-hicks-liverpool No firm bids to buy Liverpool are expected to be made tomorrow, the self-imposed deadline by which the club's chairman, Martin Broughton, said he hoped to receive solid offers. Yahya Kirdi, the Syrian businessman based in Canada, continues to express a positive interest but if, as has been claimed, his financial backers are members of the ruling family of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, any firm bid from him is certain to be delayed. Yesterday the family announced the death at 95 of Sheikha Maryam al-Shamsi, the mother of Sharjah's ruler, Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed al-Qassimi. All members of the family will now observe seven days mourning during which no business will be conducted. The Hong Kong-based businessman Kenneth Huang said today that his consortium "have confirmed with Liverpool's board that we are interested in bidding" but he has not translated that into a detailed proposal with the proof that the money is there, which Broughton has asked for. Sources close to the process confirmed today that no firm offers, with the required proof of funds, have been received, and it is not thought likely that any will be delivered tomorrow. That means Liverpool's owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett, will be hit with another £2.5m, the penalty fee they are being charged by the Royal Bank of Scotland for every week the club is not sold. Imposed on Hicks's and Gillett's Liverpool holding company, Kop, as part of the refinancing last April of £237m in loans from RBS, the £2.5m weekly penalties will, according to sources close to the arrangement, amount to an additional £60m if the club is not sold by 6 October, when the loan expires. That would mean RBS will have racked up more than £200m in interest and fees since it loaned Hicks and Gillett £185m to buy Liverpool in February 2007. RBS would not confirm the £2.5m or £60m figures, but did acknowledge penalty fees are part of the loan arrangement. The accumulating fees are charged to Hicks's and Gillett's holding company, and will become due for repayment by the owners if and when the club is finally sold. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/aug/12/liverpool-bids-deadline-day

It does. I enjoyed it. It fairly belts along, style driven. When are you setting the first assignment?

Has anyone else finished this? I'm still trying to work out quite what it tells us about the mindset of the Hodge. I'm definitely seeing him in a new light! Re the year it's set in. It's definitely some time after 1965.

Is Nick Harris of Sporting Intelligence the same Nick Harris who writes in the Independent?

Yes, you’re absolutely right. I meant all that and more to be implicit in my “managing a big club” but perhaps should have made it clearer. He’ll have to manage at a level above where he’s been and how he copes in all aspects of that will hugely determine how we do this season.

I haven’t a clue where we will finish. So much depends on whether Roy is any good at this managing a big club lark. The evidence either way is patchy at best so we’re just going to have to wait and see. The squad isn’t as deep as it should be so injuries could play a big part as well, as they did last season. Obviously a rapid change of ownership allowing us some cash for good buys could change this but I’m not holding my breath. The first few games will probably be key.

There was a deafening silence from the China Investment Corporation yesterday after it was outed by the English media as the fund behind Kenny Huang's bid for Liverpool. Deafening, because it has previously demonstrated that if it is not happy with media reports it will let everyone know. At the height of the financial crisis in 2008, Bloomberg reported that CIC may have had more than $5bn (£3.15bn) of its money frozen after the US authorities blocked withdrawals from the Reserve Primary Fund. The report made a ripple in the business press: a bit in Forbes here, a mention in a New York Times blog there. But not much. Yet it prompted a long statement on the semantics relating to these reports, in which CIC stressed that it was not a shareholder in the Reserve Primary and that it was going to try to get its money back. Compare CIC's outspoken reaction then to how it responded to the many reports across the globe yesterday and there is a marked difference. Yesterday there was no official statement from CIC. There were no quotes from officials. One "statement" prepared by Huang's Hong Kong-based PR firm was later retracted as "not official". What was official was the following: "Please be informed that there will be no media statement from Mr Kenny Huang today." And there you have it: until CIC says otherwise, we can carry on assuming that the £351.4m CIC has raised, as revealed by Digger yesterday, remains earmarked for Liverpool. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/aug/06/liverpool-cic-bid-digger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Q&A: Separating fact from fiction: Chinese sovereign wealth and the Liverpool sale By Ian Herbert Q. What is the China Investment Corporation? The China Investment Corporation is an investment fund set up in 2007 for managing some of the near two trillion dollars of currency reserves of China, a country which has amassed them by exporting far more products than it imports. It set out with $200bn under its own management and has sought to make profits by investing in natural resources and energy companies in Asia, Africa and the United States, as well as US-listed companies including Coca-Cola, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley. But nothing like a football club. Q. Why would they want to own a football club? Here is one of the mysteries currently surrounding their link to a bid for Liverpool, given the Chinese business world's dislike of a high profile. When Abu Dhabi invested in Manchester City in 2008 it was with the express desire to enhance the image of the emiracy. China would not go into business for reasons like that. But the need for Tom Hicks and George Gillett to get rid of Liverpool in a hurry makes the process effectively a fire sale so maybe CIC feels there is a quick private equity profit there - unpalatable though that may be to Liverpool fans. A huge investment is needed in the club - perhaps £1bn by the time the £237m debt is paid off, a new stadium built and the manager equipped with a stronger squad. But China likes to be associated with the biggest and the best products, and for that reason being closely linked with a reinvigorated Liverpool Football Club might just appeal. Q. Would Kenny Huang pass the "fit and proper persons" test? If he can demonstrate that CIC is backing him then almost certainly yes. The new "owners and directors" test prevents "persons barred from other sporting organisations competitions and professional bodies" from being proprietors - and Mr Huang actually seems to have been an altruistic part of the China sports scene. Key, though, is the "means and abilities" test by which he must show the projected financial position of the club and "proof of funds" to demonstrate he can sustain the club for the year ahead. Q. Should we believe yesterday's reports of CIC denying they are behind the bid? It might not be all it seems. After all, Liverpool's executive chairman Martin Broughton said he would separate the "wheat from the chaff" among bidders last month and Mr Huang has made it through. The level of noise associated with Mr Huang in the past four days has clearly unsettled those Chinese associated with him, enough for him to instruct those speaking for him in London to stop doing so. In the same way that Sulaiman al-Fahim's profile caused the Abu Dhabis embarrassment at Manchester City - they quickly dropped him - the Chinese may be involved but now seeking a different approach. Mr Huang yesterday denied the involvement of "mainland China" in his bid, which suggests it may be presented as one centred on Hong Kong, his own base. That would deflect from the idea of the China's funds being tied up in a football club's fortunes, which may not go down well in there. If the denial is real Mr Huang has managed to get to the serious bidding process on a fairy story. Q. What are the other bids on the table at Anfield? The prospective bids believed to be under most serious consideration are those from China and the New York-based Rhône Group, run by the billionaires Robert Agostinelli and Steven Langman. Rhône put forward a proposal offering Liverpool £100m for a 25 per cent stake in March as the club engaged in an ultimately fruitless attempt to raise equity. Rhône made no secret that it would continue to monitor the club's situation and it is believed to be ready to resurrect that offer, while remaining hopeful of attracting a majority partner to buy the remainder of the club. Both Barclays Capital and Liverpool's bankers Royal Bank of Scotland are thought to prefer a complete sale to just one party. Keith Harris, chairman of investment bank Seymour Pierce which has conducted the purchase of several Premier League clubs, has said he represents a party "very serious" about buying Liverpool but has not said who. The Syrian former international footballer Yahya Kirdi, who says his funds come from Sharjah, is not considered a serious bidder. Q. Who has the last say on which bid is successful? Broughton seems to feel that a three-man majority on the five-strong Liverpool board would be enough to hold sway and sources suggest that he took up Hicks and Gillett's request to lead the search for a buyer on such conditions. The concern among some in the financial community with Liverpool affinities is that if the Chinese bid falls through, then RBS's desire to have its £237m debt paid down could see the club sold to a buyer who would line the Americans' pockets but not leave any money available for the future development of the club, including players and the vitally needed new stadium. But RBS is the banker to Liverpool, handling all its transfer and commercial business and insists that the club's successful future is as much in its own interests as a resolution to the present messy situation. http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/qa-separating-fact-from-fiction-chinese-sovereign-wealth-and-the-liverpool-sale-2044643.html