Re: Torres is a done deal
Perhaps the Guardian can convince our Liverpudlian cousins ?
Yet somehow it is Liverpool, living in fear neither of administration nor relegation, who most starkly express the strange paradoxes of the Premier League. Here is a giant of English football, the proud winner of 18 league championships, seven FA Cups and five European Cups, flashing its knickers by the kerbside in the hope of persuading someone to meet the imminent repayments on an injudiciously incurred £270m debt.
To make it worse, the club's shirt is being worn by a disintegrating team holding out for a sniff of glory only in a competition for Europe's also-rans, and threatened by the loss of the manager and star players this summer. If Rafael Benítez departs, either to Juventus or Real Madrid, then he may be followed out of the door by Fernando Torres and Javier Mascherano, and perhaps even by Steven Gerrard, who would surely exchange the cherished status of a one-club man for a last shot at a league title in the colours of a genuine contender.
The arrival of a certain Portuguese manager would change that situation, and much else besides. But why would José Mourinho want to join Liverpool at this stage in their history? Wherever he goes after Internazionale, he will be looking not for a glorious tradition and a huge fan-base but for the resources to enable him to continue to win trophies at his customary rate.
Short of a miracle, that will not be on offer at Anfield. Having failed to improve the club in any respect since their arrival three years ago, Tom Hicks and George Gillett recently appointed Martin Broughton, the chairman of British Airways, to spend one day a week in the same role at Liverpool, with the sole task of finding a buyer for the club, something that they and their chief executive, Christian Purslow, have failed to achieve.
In this environment, to put up a For Sale sign outside the house is to admit that no realistic buyers have emerged and that there are none on the horizon. And why should there be? It would take the owners of a bottomless purse to meet the sort of terms demanded by Hicks and Gillett, and there is only one of those, currently at the disposal of Manchester City. How clever of the rulers of Abu Dhabi to spot that they could buy a club whose new stadium has already been paid for by the people of its home city rather than having to fork out for such an expensive necessity themselves.
