LFC TAKEOVER: A fan's personal view of 12 months with the Americans

Feb 6 2008 by Mike Chapple, Liverpool Daily Post

“I DON’T think I’ve ever felt so depressed about LFC.”

Not my words this week. They are those of a fellow Red, journalist and mate who knows more about the machinations at Anfield – yet still not enough to understand where we’ll end up in this fine mess we’ve gotten ourselves into.

His emotions are shared by thousands of Reds who thought the cavalry had arrived – but now feel like they’ve been scalped by the Apaches.

Hindsight, of course, can be a wonderful thing.

Even so, Tom Hicks and George Gillett’s “well howdy folks” introduction tallied with promises of debt wipeout and a new stadium, always seemed way too good to be true.

The warning signs were there at the signing-up press conference 365 days ago.

The new owners mixed the words “respect” “history” and “legacy” with business expressions “quality brand” and “sporting franchise” when talking about our club.

But despite the indecision over the plans and funding for the new stadium off the field plus Rafa’s perplexing rotation system on it, the alarm bells only started to tinkle for fans on November 22.

This was Ground Zero as far as we were concerned.

It when we began to understand that the Americans – or as they were to become nicknamed, The Borrowers – had no truck with “history”.

The deal from now on was that chief executive Rick Parry was to undermine the manager’s role and oversee the transfers.

And hence the unforgiveable subterfuge of The Borrowers approaching Jurgen Klinsmann behind Benitez’s back. Their excuse of it being a pragmatic insurance policy may be acceptable in the corporate American boardroom but not at Liverpool where fans, however naively, have become used to the manager deserving a little more respect.

The consolation for some is that we still have Rafa.

But for how much longer? The Reds are miles off the Premiership pace and with Benitez’s refusal to accept the need to play his strongest team we will continue to be so.

Sadly, you can’t blame the Yanks for that.