Gillett and Hicks: What are they playing at?

It really is a sorry state of affairs at Anfield right now. I can understand Gillett and Hicks delaying work on the new stadium until the credit crunch avails but what I can’t accept is the lack of investment in playing staff.

Under the old regime we couldn’t match the spending of the Mancs or the nouveau riche clubs like Chelsea but at least we never had a summer where there was nothing to spend.

In 2009, we recouped at least £53.4m from the sales of Robbie Keane, Jack Hobbs, Sebastian Leto, Paul Anderson, Alvaro Arbeloa, Xabi Alonso and Adam Hammill. In the summer, Rafa was allowed to spend £6m plus the £11m already owed by Portsmouth to us on Glen Johnson and then agreed a £20m fee for Alberto Aquilani for which I understand only the first £5m was paid in 2009. That means £53.4m came in and just £11m went out before Rafa was refused the money to buy a half decent centre half and given a paltry £1.5m to sign a washed up useless Greek instead. Ignoring the finer details of our spending, even if we took the £17m + £20m + £1.5m it still only amounts to £38.5m - £14.9m less than we recouped.

When has that ever happened? When has any Liverpool manager been given literally nothing to invest in his squad?

And now after hailing their triumph in negotiating a record breaking new shirt sponsorship deal for the club, the owners are still giving Rafa nothing to spend. It appears they will sanction £1.5m for Rodriguez, whom they originally were only prepared to sign on loan and then potentially on a Bosman in the summer, but Rafa has brought in £6.2m for the sales of Dossena and Voronin so would still have made £4.7m net profit in this transfer window alone.

We all have views as to whether Rafa should have accepted Birmingham’s £9m bid for Ryan Babel but given Rafa knew he would not be allowed to reinvest the money he was absolutely 100% correct not to sanction the sale. Babel is a pain in the arse and I believe he will never achieve his true potential under Rafa Benitez but it’s better to have the moaning Dutchman in the squad than to have no one and no money to sign a replacement.

It seems every penny brought in by the manager’s transfer dealings is being sucked into the black hole that is the Americans’ debts.

Are Gillett and Hicks so ignorant about ‘soccer’ that they genuinely do not understand that success of any kind requires investment in playing staff? How can any so-called businessman buy a company, neglect it and consider it good business? What are they actually hoping to achieve with Liverpool Football Club? We know they want to make money off it but how? Surely the only way to make money off it is to maintain its status as a top four club and Champions League regular and build the stadium? Without investing in the playing staff, there is no way any manager can keep Liverpool in the top four.

I am really starting to wonder, are Gillett and Hicks the stupidest businessmen in the world or is there a more sinister motive to their apparently clueless performance as ‘custodians’ of Liverpool FC? Are they perhaps looking to break up our ‘franchise’ and sell it piece by piece to the highest bidder? I can’t see how that would work but then I am not a shrewd businessman and, in any case, it makes as much sense as the current business plan from what we’ve seen of it.

David Moores, hang your head in shame for what you have done to our football club.