Liverpool players unite by trusting and praising each other
The 2009-10 season of Liverpool ended in dismay with Liverpool finishing 7th in the Premier League and being humiliated at Europa Cup and Champions League. They faced nearly all possible forms of tragedy and bad luck in the season ranging from mutiny to injuries and financial crisis.
However now it seems the team is emerging back from the gloomy cloudy Anfield where conditions were undecided in the summers. However that was after the Reds faced wave after wave of miseries in the last season. Their star players like Fernando Torres got themselves injured with other team members making demoralising comments of their team. They saw balloons from their own fans scoring against them but what they were really troubled by was there financial crisis.
The club is currently in debts amounting to 350 million pounds and rumour has it that they are not going to pay back their lenders with more than 47 million pounds. Their American owners Tom Hick and George Gillett especially appointed Chairman Martin Broughton to resolve the task of selling the club because of the entire dilemma.
Some say that it was mainly because of Hick’s poor lack of judgement and decision making that the club is going down. Moreover, some say that the club has got the “hicks” or “the Hicks’ curse”. Clarification for that will definitely be needed; it so happens that whatever clubs Hicks has got hold of have seen their brief time of glory after which they have come near to bankruptcy. The American owner has sold of his baseball club Texas Rangers for 374 million pounds and is thinking of selling his ice hockey club, Dallas Stars this fall.
Broughton though gave the selling of club a time period of 18 months; he immediately attracted attention from some Arabian groups. However after some negotiations the groups withdrew having issues with the price and the conditions of the club. There was a time in the past years when the club was worth nearly 800 million pounds but now it amasses between 500- 700 million pounds.
Now the new owners want to buy the club for around 350 million pounds but Hicks and George are unwavering from their demand of 800 million pounds. Both parties have conveyed that they will reach to agreement before the end of the transfer period which actually itself is a problem as Hodgson wants the deal to happen before that so that he has time to ponder over the strategy he is going to apply and the use the funds he gets from the new owners in refurnishing his squad for the new season.
Hodgson has accomplished a terrific job for Liverpool since his arrival in the summers after the departure of Rafael Benitez who is currently managing the Champions League winners, Inter Milan. The former Fulham manager Hodgson has signed in a couple of very talented players on a very low budget but the jewel in his crown of signings is Joe Cole that he obtained from Chelsea on a free transfer with a meticulous plan. He then also convinced Steven Gerrard, captain of Liverpool and Fernando Torres to play for the Reds.
Now the team seems united despite all the trouble they faced which in fact has made them emerge stronger and more prepared than before. They have steadily been improving in the summers too and there victory against Rabotnicki was proof of that.
While talking to media on the performance issue the Joe Cole stated, “It was good, I was nervous before the game but it's always like that when you go to a new club. It was good to get 90 minutes in and get the win in the end. The main difference (at Anfield as a Liverpool player) is that I wasn't getting too much stick! That's different”.
He further added that he was a bit out of form but was regaining his stamina fast and hoped to be better before the season starts, “I enjoyed it, I needed the 90 minutes. I ran out of petrol a bit with 20 minutes to go but it was needed. It would have been nice to have scored but I'm sure that will come soon’.
Jamie Carragher, the team’s vice captain, praised Cole by saying, “I thought Joe was brilliant, it was a great performance. We've probably been written off a bit over the summer and I think everyone believes we can improve on last season”.
He continued saying that team looked better and with a couple more signings they will be right back on track, “With the addition of Joe, the news about Steve (Gerrard) and Fernando (Torres) staying and hopefully one or two coming in, there's a bit more of a feel-good factor. It's positive”.
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