Liverpool FC Forum

[rocky29]

Henry, who has been at Liverpool all week, was not as heartened by some of the discoveries he has made since taking over the club. "There were a number of unpleasant surprises when we did our due diligence because the wage bill is high and it's going to be higher next year – and we're not a young team," he said. "That was disappointing."

The bill is going to be higher, so I am guessing then that Aquilani going out on loan is because of the ludicrous amount of wages he is on. Which also makes you question the wages of the other players that are out on loan.

What is Degen on?

aqua was on 70 grand a week. So for joe cole to come for 90 grand a week aqua had to go to keep the wages down. Now then youve seen joe cole. How the feck can u pay someone 20 grand a week more is older than aqua and offers far less than aqua can. And injury wise there similar. Lets just see if aqua can keep fit till end of season. If he can then id say feck joe cole off and bring aqua back. He creates far more than joe ever did

Aqua doesn't want to come back to you anymore rocky. He said he's found his new love...

go away stalker all you fecking do is follow me around like a lost puppy dont you have a brain in your head to make valid points. The mods on here are sh'ite.

[lakes10]

Has he sat down with Kenny 1 on 1 yet?

no,if you saw that bit on SSN last night they said that Kenny is not see as key in the way foward for the club.

[Redman in wales]

bbc1 football focus now. NESV interview with dan roan

[Waldo]

does anyone know if H&G are still trying to sue our new owners? It has gone all quiet on that front, which i'm taking as a positive that it will not ever happen

They backed down when they realised that they had no chance of pursuing NESV for the cash!

It was a last minute attempt to put NESV off and halt the sale. And they failed. 

[Waldo]

Another impressive interview from the new owners this week. Very measured and assuring in it's tone. These guys are very astute businessmen and I am comfortable in the knowledge that they are slowly but surely coming to grips with the club, the people, the fans and the ethos.

I sense a return to the good times is not far away. However I am concerned that the good times might not be close enough for the new owners to convince the likes of Torres and Reina to stay.

[RED BEERGOGGLES]

Courtesy of BBC sport
John Henry

[tubby]

Good interview from him. Also I liked how he didn't come out saying we are going to spend shed loads of money. At least this way if we do decide to splash out we won't get ripped off.

[RED BEERGOGGLES]

Good interview from him. Also I liked how he didn't come out saying we are going to spend shed loads of money. At least this way if we do decide to splash out we won't get ripped off.

He comes across as a  very intelligent man ,very well spoken and articulate ....shying away from delivering rash judgements and making false promises  at every opportunity  ..........

[7_Kewell]

Has he sat down with Kenny 1 on 1 yet?

no,if you saw that bit on SSN last night they said that Kenny is not see as key in the way foward for the club.

i'd agree with that. We need to look to the future. Keep Kenny on as a figure head or something, but i wouldn't want him to be involved with us picking players out for us to sign.

[tubby]

Has he sat down with Kenny 1 on 1 yet?

no,if you saw that bit on SSN last night they said that Kenny is not see as key in the way foward for the club.

i'd agree with that. We need to look to the future. Keep Kenny on as a figure head or something, but i wouldn't want him to be involved with us picking players out for us to sign.

Didn't Kenny play a big part in convincing Sterling and Wilson to sign? I wouldn't be so quick to remove his involvement from transfers. Although with a director of football now he will probably be used less in that regard.

[7_Kewell]

Has he sat down with Kenny 1 on 1 yet?

no,if you saw that bit on SSN last night they said that Kenny is not see as key in the way foward for the club.

i'd agree with that. We need to look to the future. Keep Kenny on as a figure head or something, but i wouldn't want him to be involved with us picking players out for us to sign.

Didn't Kenny play a big part in convincing Sterling and Wilson to sign? I wouldn't be so quick to remove his involvement from transfers. Although with a director of football now he will probably be used less in that regard.

true, but he didn't FIND the players tho, did he?

I'm all for Kenny meeting new prospects and convincing them to come here, but he's no talent scout.

[Reg]

Think these articles trickling out suggest a direction that cash strapped PL owners might want to support our owners on:
++

Premier League is 'like the wild west', says new Liverpool owner John W Henry

The new owners of Liverpool, New England Sports Ventures, have admitted that adapting to the world of football has been a "culture shock" and that there are aspects of the way the game works which are "like the wild west."

06 Nov 2010

John W Henry, the principal owner, and Tom Werner, the new chairman, have been shocked by the lack of transparency in football compared to American sport, the influence of agents and the power of players to push through transfers. "It's been a culture shock, there's no doubt about it," Henry said. "It's sort of like the wild west." In American sport, the salaries of players are available to the public, agents are strictly regulated and players only break contracts in exceptional circumstances.

NESV are prepared to invest in January if the right players can be identified and are keen to get a recruitment team together modelled on the one they use with the Boston Red Sox. Henry confirmed that transfers would be decided on a "collective" basis, with the new director of football strategy, Damien Comolli, and Roy Hodgson, the manager, working together. The emphasis will be on Comolli and his team of scouts identifying players, with Hodgson being consulted on which aspects of the team he feels need strengthening.

Sport on television Steven Gerrard, the Liverpool captain, has encouraged the new owners to invest in the team as soon as possible. "I think the Americans have got the right idea by trying to build a platform for this club for many years but, of course, when I speak to them, I'm going to be wanting the quick fix because I have got four or five years left at this level and I want to win trophies before I finish because that is what I go to work for," he said.

Hodgson has welcomed the appointment of Comolli, saying: “I think clubs need a strategy and they need a long term strategy and we football managers cannot guarantee long term strategy, that is fairly obvious,” he said.

“I can’t be running Liverpool and at the same time wondering what 12 year old is going to be joining the academy and how the academy is going to be run and how the scouting system is going to be run.

“You need people to do this and all clubs have got this, it's just a case of what you call them. We have a good man. Damien Comolli is a good man and he knows his football and he is experienced and had great success at Tottenham and St Etienne and I’m delighted to welcome him here and he will be a great help to me because the time I have had putting down on other areas, maybe now somebody will be there taking the burden off my shoulders or at least easing the burden but at the end of the day it will be us working together in terms of recruitment.”

Having appointed Comolli on Tuesday the club have begun the next stage of assembling their new team at Anfield by engaging a London head-hunting firm to help find them a chief executive. Henry and Werner met with recruitment specialists on Friday evening but do not anticipate an imminent appointment.

“We want to have a wide net but in a perfect world we want someone who has a connection with Liverpool and who understands the connections between the fans and Liverpool,” Werner said.

[Reg]

DEAR JOHN W HENRY, TAKE A GERMAN LESSON AND PUT FANS FIRST 
Sunday November 7,2010

JOHN W HENRY has made an impressive start as the new owner of Liverpool, declining to arrive with a cowboy swagger and instead conducting intensive but low-key research into all aspects of running a football club in England.

He has been seeking opinions from all quarters, and has already voiced his admiration for the way Arsenal operate, which is hardly surprising when they make vast profits and have built a wonderful 60,000-seater stadium within a stone’s throw of their ancestral Highbury home.

What Mr Henry should also do is pay a visit to Bayern Munich and talk to the powerbrokers of that famous German club, celebrated former players like Franz Beckenbauer and club president Uli Hoeness.

He will discover a vision of the game that, if he has the courage to implement it, could make John W Henry a true hero to the fans crowding expectantly into Anfield today for the showdown against champions Chelsea.

Bayern’s philosophy is to make football affordable for all supporters, and they have decreed that one-third of their season tickets, 12,500 of them, will cost just £104, a staggeringly low sum compared to Premier League prices.

“We could charge more than £104,” said Hoeness, the striker who helped Germany win the 1974 World Cup final. “Let’s say we charged £300 a season. If we did that, we’d get £2million more in income.

“But what’s £2million to us? In a transfer discussion you argue about that sum for five minutes. But the difference between £104 and £300 is huge for the fan.

“We do not think the fans are there to be milked like cows. Football has got to be for everybody. That’s the biggest difference between us and England.”

Listen to this. It is the truth of how it could be. It is the truth of a major football club that goes beyond platitudes and does something meaningful to prove it cares about its supporters.

Is it a good way to run a club? You might think so, and it can hardly be argued that the policy prevents Bayern Munich being a force in football when the team reached the final of the Champions League last season.

The Munich method strikes a chord with the embittered fans of Manchester United who stopped watching their favourite club in the wake of the Glazer brothers’ takeover and formed FC United of Manchester.

A marvellous milestone was reached on Friday night when FC United played in the first round of the FA Cup away to Rochdale and won 3-2.

FC United’s general manager Andy Walsh, a lapsed Old Trafford season ticket holder, surely spoke for many when he said: “After the recent Wayne Rooney contract negotiations (with the player being granted a £200,000-a-week deal) it was described as a score draw between the player and the club.

“But the losers were the fans – because they’re the ones who will be picking up the tab. The extra money to pay for Rooney’s new contract will come out of their pockets, not those of the Glazers.”

The Munich method will also strike a chord with supporters at lower division clubs that try to operate in a correct manner.

One of them, trying to spend every penny wisely, is Millwall, the subject of an outstanding new book called Family: Life, Death And Football*.

It is the no-holds-barred story of last season at Millwall, and if you want a taste of what it’s really like within a professional club, read this. It reveals the heart and soul, as well as the cruelty and occasional brutality, of our nation’s favourite game.

A standard season ticket at Millwall, now promoted back to the Championship, costs £460 this season. It is lower than most Premier League teams, though not Blackburn Rovers, where the price is an admirable £224.

We wait to see whether that will continue should the proposed takeover of Rovers by an Indian poultry firm be completed, just as we wait to see the practical effect of the John W Henry regime at Anfield. Promises count for nothing. Fine words count for nothing.

The standard price for a season ticket on The Kop this season is £680. Bayern Munich charge a basic £104 – and feel they would be fleecing their fans if they went even as high as £300.

So, let’s see if these new Anfield Americans can set a fresh path for English football. Let’s see if they can be modern, sophisticated and radical owners of a major football club – and truly put the fans’ interests at heart.

* Family: Life, Death And Football by Michael Calvin is published by Integr8, £12.99.

[Reg]

Liverpool's new guns ride warily into town.

John W Henry and Tom Werner are sizing up an unfamiliar fight at Liverpool

The Observer, Sunday 7 November 2010

Liverpool's new American owners have likened English football to the "wild west" in terms of the power of players and their agents. John W Henry, Liverpool's principal owner, and Tom Werner, who is due to take over as club chairman, said it had been a "culture shock" to realise the extent to which players held sway over their clubs, even while under contract.

In the US, where Henry's New England Sports Ventures has taken the Boston Red Sox to two World Series titles, Henry said players were generally held to their contracts and clubs were in control. In the post-Bosman world of European football, however, players and their agents tend to hold sway.

"It's a culture shock, there's no doubt about it. It's like the wild west," said Henry, who implied there was more certainty in US sport. "It's a completely different system here from what we're used to. If a player has a contract in the US, they fulfil the contract. Over here, it seems players have much more say so."

Werner, the well-respected US media executive who will take over from Martin Broughton as chairman, said the next pressing task for the club was to install a new chief executive to replace Christian Purslow. Dismissing speculation that potential candidates had already been approached, he said the club would not restrict the search to English football. "We want to have a wide net. But in a perfect world we'd also have someone who understands the importance of Liverpool and the connection to fans in Liverpool."

He said the search was at a "very early" stage. Werner and Henry met headhunters on Friday to begin the process of drawing up a shortlist. The pair said they were looking to overhaul the structure of the football side of the club, beginning with the appointment of the former Tottenham Hotspur director of football Damien Comolli.

Werner said the club would be looking to make a series of appointments on the football and commercial sides of the business as they sought to rebuild and grow revenues globally. Manchester United have boosted commercial revenue around the world by targeting global sponsors in a range of new categories and Liverpool are expected to follow suit. Arsenal's chief executive, Ivan Gazidis, has also revamped the club's commercial operation in a bid to boost revenues.

"Our mantra has been to under promise and over deliver. When we came into Boston we were given a short window. We understand the impatience of fans, but our intention is to build a great club from the foundation up," Werner said. "Our intention is to find the very best people. It would be crazy to promise too much too soon, but I hope our track record is a guide that we are successful operators."

[loopyliverpool]

Ive just seen the interview with Henry on the previous page and he does come across very well indeed. However, I have to question how come he is unsure about how the financing of the new stadium works 'over here', particularly to where the debt lies? Surely the most important issue concerning the new owners was this and for him to be so vague and unknowing of 'how it works over here' does cause me some concern. When the former board deemed Henry and his company's offer the best to take LFC forward was not this asked of him? I would have thought this key to any bid being successful! I am no businessman but surely the debt for any new stadium or indeed refurbishment has to lay at LFC's door.