Liverpool remain in choppy waters despite positive developments

Liverpool fans could have been forgiven for experiencing a bout of optimism on Tuesday. A potential buyer for the club had emerged to remove the increasingly loathed George Gillett and Tom Hicks, apparently with money to invest in players and a new stadium, and Fernando Torres confirmed his continued loyalty to the club. The two are unlikely to have been unrelated, but were rightly welcomed by a set of supporters who haven’t had that much to cheer about of late.

However, developments on Wednesday may have poured a healthy dose of cold water on this positivity and in the cold light of day, it is obvious that the club aren’t yet within touching distance of the stability and success that they crave. Kenneth Huang sought to clarify that, whilst having expressed an interest, he had yet to make a formal offer for the club, while Roy Hodgson conceded that Torres could still be prised away from the club if an offer of the right magnitude came in.

In a further twist, and in an apparent attempt to gazump Huang, Yahya Kirdi claimed that his consortium was in “advanced negotiations” with Gillett and Hicks to buy Liverpool. Like Huang, the Syrian businessman is claiming he will clear the club’s debts and provide serious investment in the team. However, Kirdi had previously been dismissed as a serious bidder for the club and the conspiracy theorists are speculating that his public interest is designed to increase the price the Americans can demand for the club.

The waters have been truly muddied then, with Liverpool fans once again having to put up with public haggling for a club whose history and tradition surely deserves better. Any kind of optimism that all this may have generated must also have been tempered by the feeling that they have heard this all before. Gillett and Hicks rode into Anfield with a raft of promises and aspirations, none of which have been fulfilled, unless plunging the club into debt and being widely despised were two of them.

Back to Torres, and Roy Hodgson was only speaking pragmatically when he said that a bid in excess of £50 million would be hard to resist for the Spanish striker. Liverpool are simply not the kind of position to turn that kind of offer down. Whilst Torres is committed for the forthcoming campaign, it is difficult to escape the feeling that Liverpool need to win a major piece of silverware to convince him that Anfield is where his future lies beyond that.

The upshot of all of this is that the pressure on Hodgson has significantly increased. He needs to deliver the kind of success in his first season which is going to keep the likes of Torres and Steven Gerrard at the club. This, of course, may well depend on the resources he has to bring in new players, which in turn hinges on the outcome of the ownership tussle. All of this after being labelled “a bugger” by his former chairman Mohamed Al Fayed, who claims he let Fulham down.

Hodgson will rightly take Al Fayed’s comments with a pinch of salt and turn his thoughts to the first fixture with Arsenal on 15^th August in what is likely to be a stern opening test. The prospect of a new regime and money to spend has been dangled in front of him enticingly but, like the fans who have been here once before, he is likely to be acutely aware that this season is going to be a challenging one, whoever the new owner might be.