It’s time to praise Liverpool. Not the club, but the manager and the players.

It’s unthinkable that any other team under the circumstances could’ve got their way to a Champions League semi with the sort of shenanigans that’s going on off the pitch.

True, it’s down to two players mostly, but that doesn’t make it any less of an achievement.

At a time when fans and players were marking the anniversary of the Hillsborough tragedy, Tom Hicks was busy sharpening his sword and preparing to dig it in to the ribs of anyone within stabbing distance.

This bloke says Rick Parry’s time as chief executive has been a disaster. Well, maybe, it hasn’t been too clever, but the biggest mistake he made was selling the club to America’s version of Cain and Abel.

Hicks is keen to put the skids under Parry – the Klinsmann meeting was set up by Rick apparently, and although he thought it was out of order, Hicks was there too, with his son Tom.

That tells you all you need to know doesn’t it? Tom Hicks has called his son Tom. Why do Yanks do that? All them American golfers called summat-summat the third. Like you’re not so much a person, just a sequel.

Hicks says if he bought Gillett out he’d put Rafa on a one-year extension straight away so he was around when the stadium was finally finished. One whole year, Tom? Taking your employment tips from the RFU, are you?

"Well done, Mr Ashton, would you like to keep your job for a whole year after getting a bunch of concrete-filled pillowcases to the World Cup Final?

"Good! That’ll give us plenty of time to undermine you by talking to other people behind your back. And then when we’ve done that we’ll sack you and offer you a rank alternative." That’s top management, isn’t it?

Hicks says Parry’s relationship with Rafa is fragile. Right. I suppose, though, if they went out for dinner, they might be able to string together a conversation, unlike, say, you and George.

You can see it now. "Could you ask Mr Hicks to pass me the salt?" "Could you tell Mr Gillett that the salt is in easy reach" etc, etc.

Do the two of them really think the public, and especially the Liverpool fans, are really going to believe anything they say when it’s all so obviously about two overgrown and unfortunately wealthy schoolboys having a playground spat?

It couldn’t be worse if Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie were the majority shareholders. I can’t imagine Parry’s job at the moment is anything other than that of an exhausted parent.

DIC has been looming in the background dangling the keys to Fort Knox in the faces of Parry, but the hapless pair aren’t going to put up with that. Hicks will never sell.

Gillett will sell to DIC maybe, but there’s a gentlemen’s agreement about one of them selling up independently of the other. Mind that’s a gentlemen’s agreement so it doesn’t apply to Gillett and Hicks.

In the meantime who decides what cash Rafa’s going to get to strengthen the squad (that is if he really wants a better than fourth place finish in any given year)?

Rafa really needs to offload a few n'all – Voronin, Pennant, Arbeloa, and Hyppia are looking a bit like a Grand National chaser coming into the home straight for the last time.

I mean it’s a joke. There’s a lorra lorra people out there who think the Beeb goes on a bit too much about Liverpool. But the board are a disgrace right now – and this is the club that set the benchmark for keeping everything in-house and out of the papers.

Hicks seems so bent on washing his dirty linen in public he should move out of football and into launderettes.

The idea that Liverpool might win the Champs League and the six board members will be jumping up and down in delight is a bit bloody sickening.

Not quite sure how any of them have helped – save for the cash for Torres, which any other bidder would have provided anyway.

At this rate they’ll be moving into a soulless shell of a stadium, with no Kop-like aura, and there’ll be two executive boxes at either end of the main stand to stop the stropsters from throwing peanuts at each other.

The ground’ll be called the Hicks-Gillett stadium on one side and the Gillett-Hicks Stadium on the other. And they’ll never get away from the ground very quick cos they’ll be letting each others’ tyres down and keying each others paintwork.

It’s a total joke. I was surprised that the Glazers weren’t carried out of Old Trafford on tumbrils and tipped into the Manchester Ship Canal – but what they’ve done well is they’ve kept their heads down.

Cos they know nowt about footy. And the club’s done fine, of course. But even Liverpool’s success can’t stop these prissy pillocks arguing the toss about just about everything.

I have spent half my life watching and whining at Liverpool FC cos for years you just couldn’t stop them winning anything unless you were a genius like Cloughie.

I suppose now I should be laughing, but it just makes me bleeding angry - and by the way, it’s not cos they’re American.
It’s cos they’re pathetic. Pick up your balls and go home and let someone else have a go.