John Aldridge: We Want Liverpool FC Out Of The Red

There has been a real concern about Liverpool’s finances for a long time but it has got to the stage now where the vast majority of supporters have discovered how bad our finances are.

People can see how deep the debt is and we are not interested in smokescreens; it doesn’t take a genius to work out that Liverpool are on the verge of real trouble.

You could see that in the last transfer window; the pursuit of Kenwyne Jones was a smokescreen; we didn’t have the money to buy him outright and there was never any chance of him coming on loan.

We sold two players in Andriy Voronin and Andrea Dossena for good money but it wasn’t reinvested and everyone knows where the cash from those deals will have gone.

There was talk of Milan Jovanovic signing his pre-contract earlier this week but don’t for a moment think that is going to be a significant outlay; he’d be a free transfer, not the type that balances the books.

Though it is encouraging to hear that moves are afoot to shrink the debt, it is still not an ideal situation even though it could eventually lead to the club being sold.

And the sooner that happens, the better for everyone. Tom Hicks and George Gillett have to go and that feeling is shared by a lot of the former players who I talk to.

I obviously can’t speak for all of them but my own view is that something desperately needs to change, as we can’t continue like this.

All the former players want is what is best for the club and in this instance, it is for Liverpool to be free of debt and able to challenge for the best trophies on a sound financial footing.

I have no preference for the identity of a prospective buyer, all I want is for the Reds to be out of this – as does everyone else.