The walters step over

Do you think they're pocketing it for themselves? We're paying players CL type wages/transfer fees/agents fees and bonus' without CL money coming in. That's basically where the money is going.

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It's interesting that there's been a few articles saying that the "you Americans.." line is almost certainly a lie on the prosecutors part, in the Times there was also the suggestion that there's more than a few U.S. authorities uneasy with how this is happening. Whether it's true or not, I don't know but it was written as though the chief prosecutor guy is seeing this as his big chance to build a poilitical career and it's possible the whole case could just crumble.

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That's the point though, we should be used to that idea. It's just that a lot of people are refusing to accept the reality of our situation. We've changed managers twice and paid compo to bring in BR, there's not far from £20m right there.In the same period Carroll,Henderson and Downing cost in the region £70m + (not even taking into account wages,signing on and agents fees) and realistically only Henderson is likely to figure much this year so there's more money down the drain before we spend a penny on the neccessary replacements for their positions. The main problem with replacing any of the players we bought last year is that we would have to take a loss of around 50% (if not more). And this has all happened without the safety net of the £30m per year CL money. We pay CL wages but are going into our third season in the Europa and of the top three richest clubs in the world (in terms of tranfer fees + wages spent on players) two of them are in our league. Utd haven't finished outside the CL positions since the format was changed and Arsenal have have qualified every year Wengers been there - that's what we're up against. Add to that, Spurs and Newcastle. These are the clubs that we're up against when trying to bring players to the club and an argument could be made that for any available player that doesn't have any personal bias then of those six clubs we'd probably rank 5th on the list of destinations if they had the choice. Unfortunately, that's were we are. "We are LFC" will mean a hell of a lot less than "we are in the CL" or "we are in London" to most players and unles they're joining from a smaller club it'll take a bit of a leap of faith on any players behalf to look at an underachieving club with a new manager and say "I want to go there". Kenny wasn't sacked because he didn't bring us CL, he was sacked because he spent so much and never even looked close to finishing in the top four. BR's budget is going to be smaller, FSG have already said that CL isn't going to be the criteria on how they judge this season - it's going to be about wether the players he brings in improve the squad, wether the team looks as though they're playing as a unit and can improve with time. There's been too many clubs that have gambled financial with their futures and we can't go down that road. We've already come within days (hours?) of administration through the two feckers and I don't want us to risk it in the hope of a top four finish this year, we have to do it in stages. I can understand people getting nervous but some of the anger and finger pointing is out of order. We don't really have much choice than to go down this path. We had the big splurge on players last year and it was disastrous, I can't see what else we can do but to do what FSG are trying to do and since they won't be going anywhere soon the only thing we can do is get behind BR and hope that his methods can make the whole better than the sum of it's parts. Imo if we can finish within five or six points off fourth and look as though we're building for the following season then he'll have been successful.

From what I've seen on here you seem to have a grasp of financial stuff, could you answer something for me? I've read a few articles that are saying that pressing charges against Standard is a political move as much as anything. Basically the theory boils down to American D.A.'s going after foreign businesses so that any money invested is withdrawn and placed in an American bank/whatever whilst making the prosecuters look like they're on the frontline in the war on terror which will give them a nice platform to run on when they stand for political office. Is that likely, or just excuses for being caught?

I honestly don't know why Rafa wasn't hired, possibly they thought that having fired one club legend they didn't want to have to go through it again and risk having the fans turn. Personally, I'd say that was a mistake but I can see the logic to it. They spent more last year (whichever way you look at the figures) than we have ever done before, the fact it was p*ssed up the wall can't be used against them, their job is to provide as much as possible to the manager and let him get on with it, which is what they did. It seems to me that the plan was young players that will be the foundation for a CL place last year, or at the least come close enough so that this year one or two quality buys this summer would make the difference. The problem was none of the players bought made any significant contribution and were bought for ridiculously inflated prices, and we're no further down the road - again that's a mangement error. We had a fantastic opportunity to make up ground quickly with the money available and blew it so it seems to me that they're trying to do things similar to Spurs, astute buys in the market with a manager that can hopefully get the team perfoming as a unit. I seem to be defending FSG a fair amount on here when in truth I couldn't really care less who owns the club as long as they don't take the p*ss like G+H but I honestlty think a lot of it is down to frustration at an opportunity lost and a desire not to be seen to be criticising Kenny for the money wasted so FSg get it in the neck.

David Moores had more passion for the club than probably anyone you or I could name. He was also probably the single biggest factor in us not winning the title for 20-odd years and being where we are now. FSG bought us to make money - if someone came along tomorrow and offered them enough they would sell, I've no doubt about that. I also believe that they know that the best way for them to make a big profit is to grow the club and get us into the CL regularly and I honestly believ they're trying to do that. We knew they weren't going to inject multi millions of their own cash and personally I don't want us to gamble away our future like Leeds and Rangers have in the hope that borrowed money now pays for CL next year. Nobody has still put forward what they've actually been doing wrong (by that, I mean not "I've got a feeling they will.." "I bet you they.." type stuff, actual instances - and if hiring Commolli is put forward then hiring Kenny has to follow close behind). As far as I can see, they're taking the only road open to us and we just have to see how it goes, it's not ideal but it's where we are as a club.

Imo, you show Kenny respect by not acting like he needs to be protected from any criticism, for a club to have achieved over the years that LFC has done and be held as our greatest player and one of our best managers tells you how much esteem he's held in. He made bad errors last year in terms of signings and if you want to make the argument that he didn't actually spend that much then you still have to concede that the players he brought in didn't contribute much at all. Ultimately, that comes down to the manager, whoever he is. We don't know that Carroll wouldn't have scored 20 goals this year under Kenny, or wether Downing would've sparked but all you can judge on is what came before and if we're being honest can anyone really say that those two would've suddenly clicked based on what we'd seen?

What should they be doing differently, and how much do you think is reasonable to expect them to spend on players per year without CL?

There's been no indication that this is the case. If you want to be negative you can interpret BR's comments as "we have to sell before we can buy". If you want to be positive you can interpret them as "we've got deals pretty much agreed but the selling clubs want to get their replacements done before the deals will go through". I'm in the positive camp simply because I don't believe BR would've joined if he didn't believe the budget was enough to do the things he wanted to.Add to that the money it cost to pay off Kenny/bring in BR then imo if FSG were counting the pennies then they could've left Kenny in charge.

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So if things don't go well at the start and BR is sacked, we then spend multi millions paying his staff off and bring in the new guy. New guy says "of course,it's not going to happen overnight" and needs time to put his plans into place so what do we do then? We obviously don't have the depth of funds like City or Madrid or Chelsea to chop and change every year and collect players on big money that contribute nothing.At some point FSG (and it will be them unless someone comes out of the woodwork and buys the club) have to put their faith in a manager and give him the time and space to implement his plans.

Three months and one transfer window? I hope people are a little more patient than that. Under Rafa we had some p*ss poor games in the beginning but when it worked you could see what he was trying to do, I would imagine similar will happen this year (especially with the start we have) and patience is going to be key. FSG have put their faith in him and from what they've said he's going to be given time - by that I mean season,rather than "sh*t, we're tenth in Jan - you're sacked mate" and then starting the whole rebuild again from scratch. Unless we have Mansour type funds it was always going to take time. If we'd have taken out a loan in the mid '90s to build a new stadium when a lot of clubs were doing exactly that and Parry was moaning about us taking in £1m less per home game than Utd we could have been coining it in for the last ten years, but we didn't.We had the opportunity to push on when we were selling the club in '07 and blew it,Moores could've sold to DIC and they would have splashed the cash but apparently Moores was such a f*cking moron that he ended up just p*ssing off Amanda Stavely so that went t*ts up. We had the opportunity to make a huge stride forward last year with the money available, and we blew it. Because of those missed opportunities we have to be realistic. Imo, we're at least on the right track, appointing a good young manager who will hopefully improve us year on year until we get to were we want to be.

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And then we're left with a player the manager doesn't seem to want, that won't play much but still be taking £4m or so out of the club. It doesn't seem that bad a deal to me, effectively he'll be W.Hams player which they'll pay the first installment of £2m with the rest to come later. If they go down they "sell" him back to us for free. As far as I can tell, it's not like Cole or Aqua' at all - even if he stinks the place out W.Ham will still have to pay the price agreed. He would have a relegation clause in his contract anyway and from FSG's point of view they would use the guaranteed fee to buy another player (in the same way they would for any permanent transfer) and if Carroll comes back then they will just deduct the cost from next years budget unless another buyer comes forward.

And Kenny surely? Obviously everyone's protective of kenny but there is no way he wasn't heavily involved in the transfers. I just can't see a scenario whereby Kenny says "I want Carroll, Henderson,etc but you don't need to ask my opionion on how much we should pay in fees and wages for them". He would have to have been involved if only so that he would know how much he had left to spend. I think he made big mistakes in player buys last year but I don't think Kenny is anyone's fool - there's no way he would've let himself be taken out of the loop by Commolli when it came to his transfer budget.

He gets the best out of what he has, and very few of his big money signings fail.

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