The departure of David Moores brought mixed feelings. Many Liverpool fans will hold him ultimately to blame for the sorry saga of the American owners, and he himself has gone on record with his disappointment as to the way matters have transpired since he sold his majority stake.

Those who point the finger at Moores will claim that his last-minute change of heart at the point of sale, jettisoning the Arabian riches of DIC and selling instead to Hicks and Gillett, was financially motivated and thus a betrayal of his intention to ensure Liverpool would stay in safe hands.

I prefer to think that naivety was his biggest crime. Moores was always out of his depth as the commercial side of the game took off, and leant heavily on first Peter Robinson, and then Parry.

Perhaps his biggest mistake was not in selling to the Americans (for there’s no evidence to suggest that DIC would have been the benevolent masters that some fans seem to have idealised) but in allowing them to be 50/50 partners – a recipe for paralysis if ever there was one. But at least Moores deserves to be remembered as the very thing many fans now crave – someone who really understood the club at its helm.