Liverpool's recent visit to the Emirates Stadium was a sobering experience for players, fans and the hierarchy of a club on the brink of a massive transformation.

Arsenal's crushing 3-0 win was further confirmation that Liverpool can again forget about a championship they once regarded as a birthright.

And, with almost as much significance, it was played in front of a 60,000-plus crowd in a magnificent new arena.

Liverpool had hoped to be playing in similar surroundings themselves by 2006, a shining new symbol of their status as one of the world's biggest clubs.

The plans are still effectively on the drawing board.

A search for new investment that goes back to the appointment of financial advisors Hawkpoint in March 2004 still awaits a successful conclusion.

As for the new stadium, there is still an air of uncertainty surrounding Liverpool's next move.

Earlier in November, Merseyside's biggest government agency, the North West Development Agency, revealed it was refusing to hand over £9m it had earmarked for Liverpool.

NWDA chief executive Steven Broomhead said: "The agency has yet to see any clear evidence of the club's ability to commence with the stadium project, that is to raise the necessary funds."

So, against this backdrop, it would be easy to imagine Liverpool's fans filing out of The Emirates asking: "When will this be us? And just who was it who won the Champions League 18 months ago?"

The word is, though, that the waiting could soon be at an end...even within days.

Sources on Merseyside suggest a takeover is now imminent - and it will not come a day too soon.

Liverpool may have enjoyed Champions League and FA Cup triumphs under Rafael Benitez, but new investment is needed to halt a domestic slide which has seen them fall dangerously off the pace of the Premiership pace-setters.

A simple but painful fact for you to consider - Manchester United attract a guaranteed 32,000 more fans at every home game than Liverpool do at Anfield.

Throw in Roman Abramovich's chequebook plus Arsenal's gleaming new super-sized home, and the sums make painful reading as Liverpool seek greater financial firepower.

Liverpool chairman David Moores deserves huge credit for his constant support of managers during his reign.

They have never gone short of cash.

But he now appears to accept it is time for new money and the old guard's departure.

The search, when it ends, concludes a journey far and wide by chief executive Rick Parry.

He has been criticised for being too slow off the mark and failing to cash in on Liverpool's great moment in Milan in 2005.

But this fails to take in Moores' ties to a club that, despite its size and worldwide reach, remains an almost uniquely parochial football club given its status.

And the sale of Liverpool Football Club is not a deal that should be done lightly.

If Parry had recommended a sale too soon, what might have happened had the club been delivered into the wrong hands?

Local businessman Steve Morgan, a lifelong Liverpool fan with big plans for the club, came and went.

He was, in many ways, the perfect choice but his bid failed partly because of a notoriously uneasy personal relationship with Moores.

Morgan was certainly not the wrong hands, but perhaps the wrong man given his strident public criticism of Moores.

It was Morgan who revealed at Liverpool's AGM in February that the club was £73m in debt - a figure which is now understood to be more than £80m.

A flirtation with then Thai PM Thaksin Shiniwatra came to nothing - luckily given he was later overthrown by a military junta.

Add the US billionaire Robert Kraft and we come full circle to what looks like the conclusion of this lengthy saga.

The list of contenders has narrowed.

Dubai International Capital, whose head Samari Ansari is a Liverpool fan, are interested along with George Gillet Junior, owner of Montreal Canadiens ice hockey team.

The Dubai option appears favourite, with rumours of a deal being close to completion, but others are still stalking Anfield and there may yet be a twist.

They are believed to include Belfast property millionaire John Miskelly, a Norwegian group led by Oystein Stray Spetalen and Petter Stordalen, and a consortium based in Switzerland put together by Robert Herd, the former chairman of Oxford United.

Will Morgan return to the table? Unlikely but many still hope he will.

Moores' asking price of £300m for his 51% stake has been a sticking point, but he may now consider reducing that price to finally close a deal.

He has more than 17,000 shares and values them at £6,000 each.

Sources say the price has dropped. He would receive the money from a sale, but is understood to want a guarantee that a purchaser would take out 15,000 unissued shares.

Complex indeed, but Liverpool need big money to close a very big gap. And they need it quickly.

It is a choice he and Parry must make carefully - but equally an investment that must also be made with caution.

An £80m debt, a bill for £200m for a new stadium, a buy-out of Moores and investment in new players?

Liverpool will not come cheap...and nor should it with a fan base spread worldwide and with a huge (apologies for use of this horrible word in a football context) "brand".

Supporters will be as interested in money for players as much as the proposed new stadium.

It is suggested Gillet's package is around £450m, with around £50m for players and other costs once a takeover is completed and a stadium built.

Substantial, but the sort of cash Abramovich might find down the back of his yacht's sofa.

The Dubai group are regarded as serious business investors rather than lavish benefactors, so hopes of a transfer kitty on an Abramovich scale may be misplaced.

One thing is certain, Liverpool have now reach a crucial point in their history.

If they hesitate any further, the chase to catch Manchester United, Chelsea and even Arsenal could be lost.

The signs are they finally ready to make the move and place Liverpool's future in new hands.