There is a huge gulf in class on paper between AC Milan players and their Liverpool opponents. If Benittez pulls the team together to outsmart AC, this could be one of the most remarkable achievements ever by a manager of a British club. On the field, Steven Gerard could achieve a form of imortality tonight. Have to say, rationally, I haven't yet come up with anything other than an AC Milan win.

Yes it was the seventh as Revidge described it in the 7-0 against Forest. It was great to see it in the flesh but unlike Shearer's howitzer against QPR the previous season, the cameraman caught it beautifully and it looked even better on TV!

This MB is getting boring. Le Saux should not have been in our team ahead of Newton and Eckersley. But as the third best left back Rovers have ever had, that still makes him one hell of a player and undeserving of the jim garbage. The seventh he hit against Forest was European goal of the week and I don't think we have had many of those. Saux crossing to Shearer was probably an even more potent combination than Ripley to Shearer. Sauxy was always a favourite of mine and I wish him all the best in his new media career.

I don't know what the latest moaning about Brum playing him in the Reserves was about. A warning to Sparky because he sees his position under threat from The Axe if the forwards signings result in Rovers playing 4-4-2 again? An attempt to unsettle some "stars" at Brum as they extend the size of their squad. A journalist stuck a microphone in front of him so he said something? Unless there has been a dramatic ageing or loss of desire for the game, I saw enough of him in a Brum shirt to know he is a hugely effective player when fully fit.

Glazer faces stinging interest rates Paul Murphy Tuesday May 24, 2005 The Guardian Malcolm Glazer has a window of three years between May 2007 and the summer of 2010 during which he will be forced to refinance Manchester United, his official takeover document reveals. The group of three hedge-fund investors who put up £275m of the £790m required by Glazer to seize full control of the club have imposed special terms whereby the owner of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will have to pay a special penalty charge if he buys the hedge funds out within two years. Similarly, these investors will win special rights over Glazer's shareholding in Manchester United unless he has paid them back in full - and with interest - by August 2010. Red Football, Glazer's acquisition vehicle, published a formal bid document yesterday which highlights the burden Glazer is taking on, with £265m of core debt, a £19m bridging loan due to be repaid in less than a year, a £50m loan for working capital and then a £50m facility earmarked for "capital expenditure". Much of the debt carries an annual interest bill of 8% - compared with a typical mortgage rate of 6.5% in Britain - and £85m of the money raised by Glazer will cost him a stinging 11.5% a year. The interest rates revealed are higher than had been suggested. In other words, the 2007 broadcasting rights negotiation will be a battle to the death. Glazer's or football's

Go for the Apple but Chesh is right about Dells being built to last.

These two concluding paragraphs taken from "The Economist" article on the Glazer take over of Man U spell out what a menace this man is to Blackburn Rovers and the game we know today: "True, United fans may have some reason to worry about the debt that Mr Glazer is piling on to the club's hitherto healthy balance sheet. Exactly how much of a purchase price that values United at £790m ($1.5 billion) will be paid by borrowing is unclear. His use of a high-risk financing technique known as a “PIK” (pay in kind) loan that is now worryingly popular in private-equity deals is not encouraging. Nor is the example of Leeds United, a team that only a few years ago was briefly among the best in Europe but has since been relegated amid a financial crisis brought on by excessive debt and whizzy financing techniques such as making asset-backed securities of its top players. The trigger for this disaster was the failure of Leeds to qualify for the hugely lucrative annual Europe-wide Champions League—a fate that Mr Glazer must ensure never befalls his new team. "To boost revenues, Mr Glazer is expected to try to end joint negotiation of television rights by the top English teams that play in the Premiership, instead negotiating separately the right to screen United games. That sort of rampant individualism, after all, is what American capitalists are famous for. In fact, American team owners tend to profit by suppressing, to some extent, their individualism, points out Stefan Szymanski, co-author of “National Pastime”, a superb new book that compares the economics of the sport business in different countries. American sports leagues—above all the National Football League, in which the Bucs play—tend to be cartels, with fewer teams than there would be in a free market, protected by the absence of relegation, and often using socialistic practices such as salary limits for players and a centralised sharing out of young players to stop any team becoming too hopeless. As the Premiership evolves, and, above all, as Europe's top soccer teams, with United to the fore, debate how to take Europe-wide competition to the next even more profitable level, Mr Glazer's knowledge of American sport's anti-competitive collectivism may prove priceless."

Paul, I am repeating the Independent's assertion about £812m of borrowings which presumably has passed through the libel lawyer's office before being published. The Glazers undoubtedly have some cash- buying seven mansions etc. but The Independent is probably correct in concluding they didn't have the £272m lying around with which they built up their initial Man U stake before they took the bridging loan to buy out Cubic. So that is probably privately borrowed money as well. If the Glazers are worth £700m as reported, then assets such as the Buccaneers, the fish oil factory, the air bag factory, the trailer parks (if they have any left) and the mansions are no doubt counted in the ownership total but those are asset values and largely not cash. Even if the Glazers had a cash mountain, it is highly improbable they used/risked their own cash to any great extent. In trying to rationalise what Glazer is up to, some commerntators are guessing he leveraged (used little of his own cash backed by masses of other people's money) to make a quick return. In other words, lets say only £50m of Glazers' own money were involved and they sell Man U on for £900m, then they stand to take the difference between the buying and selling price less costs as their own profit- and would take it in cash after tax. That way £50m turns into £100m for the Glazers very quickly. The problem with this idea is that the transaction costs- bankers, lawyers, borrowing fees and interest must already be enormous- Glazer has been stalking Man U for a long time and had to change advisers so I would guess he is already over £10m out of pocket on those sorts of costs at the very least- probably more like £30m. The second difficulty is that he has already paid a huge price for Man U. If recent half year results continue into the future, it would take Man U 24 years of profits to generate income to cover the £800m purchase price before allowing for interest etc. so it is hard to see who would pay more than the Glazers for Man U in the short term. The reason why everybody (including, eventually all the fans) is selling at £3 per share is that price is more than anyone can reasonably foresee getting back from holding Man U shares in any other circumstances. Returning to the question about the preference shares, the exact nature of those shares will be revealed in the offer document expected later this week. It is highly probable that they will carry a fixed premium (ie an interest payment) and will be secured over assets. In other words, they will have all the characteristics of being debt but not technically termed as such. In corporate finance, this sort of paper is often referred to as "mezzanine finance"- half way between debt and equity. If things go well, it becomes regarded as equity, badly and it is often more painful than ordinary debt because the holders already own a chunk of the enterprise as well as being able to call in the security. Finally, the point about expulsion from the Premiership- I probably did not explain this well enough. In my opinion, the Premier League members have plenty of means with which to fight the Glazers if they try to make a grab for moneys which at present are going into the other 19 clubs. Make no bones- a redistribution of TV income is robbing Rovers to pay Glazer United. Quite apart from a straightforward 19-1 vote against the idea (or even 7-13 in favour and it still fails), the Premiership has a number of other options to keep Glazer under control: - there will at some point be an Inspectors' report into Leeds United. Even without the Glazers running around, the FA and Premiership would no doubt come under political pressure to tighten up the rules of governance and debt finance in football. On any basis, the Glazers dumping their debt onto Man U would put Man U in trouble when the Leeds report is finally issued. - UEFA have already issued a consultative document which will make the level of club indebtedness a licensing issue from 2007/8. In other words, clubs with more than a rather restricted level of debt would not be granted a license to participate in any UEFA competition. UEFA has looked at Leeds, Lazio, Borussia (even Real and Barca) and been alarmed at the way irresponsible management can borrow on the never never and create successful football clubs against the interests of more responsibly run clubs. Surely it is in the Premiership's interest to adopt those proposals itself to avoid any of its clubs being barred from European competition and potentially losing a place for Premiership clubs? - The Premiership is no doubt intrigued by the NFL's behaviour which the Glazer involvement has brought to their attention. The NFL is a collective of franchise owners far more socialistic and controlling than anything yet envisaged in Europe (but could be a model for a European Super League). In order to participate in the closed collective, the franchise owners are clearly interested in the other franchise holders abiding by the rules which is why the NFL is a relatively strictly governed members' club. Hence, the Glazers are being investigated by the NFL over the Man U purchase to see if: 1) The Buccaneers have exceded the borrowing limits for a franchise ($100m). 2) They have contravened NFL rules against pledging a franchise as security in borrowings. 3) To get assurance that the Man U dalliance will in no way harm the management of the Buccaneers or the interests of the NFL- the idea of setting up a Man U team to compete in the American Soccer League might be seen as inimicable to obligations as a franchise holder. Some of those ideas could well find their way into the Premiership's thinking in deciding how to deal with the Glazer threat. I would imagine the Premiership and their lawyers are actively considering giving notice of intended rule change on indebtedness being put to a vote of the Premier League clubs before the Glazers dump their debt onto Man U. At some point, the Glazers and the Premier League will inevitably clash. Expulsion of Man U from the Premiership would be a last step but it is undoubtedly an option and it would be better the Glazers go out on the League's terms than on their own. Was the FA Cup that devalued being without Man U for a season?

There has been a distinct shift in sentiment about the Glazers on this side of the Atlantic in the last few days. The BBC World Service finance editor has shifted his position from believing the Glazers would make a success of the deal to now expecting they will fail. There is a very interesting article in The Independent here. The nub is: The Glazers have borrowed every penny of the £812m they are paying for Man U The interest payments are at huge rates including a bridging loan they have taken out to buy out McManus and Magnier The banks have taken out security over all the Glazer assets except the Buccaneers. The NFL rules prevent their franchises being used as bank security but even so the NFL has launched an enquiry into the Glazer take over of Man U. Therefore the banks will hold Man U and the fish oil company when Man U sinks under the debt. Interestingly, the share holding Man U supprters are being very sensible. Rather than be heroic holders of worthless pieces of paper, it looks like they are all going to sell out and take Glazer's £3 per share (perhaps a few token shares will stay in to obtain information) and transfer their £50m into a fund ready to pick up the pieces once Glazer fails. For Glazer to succeed he needs: Berlusconi to come on board with him to set up a franchised European Super League. Premiership and UEFA bosses to be stupid even by their own standards of ineptitude. Somehow, make interest payments of at least twice the level of the Mancs' profits for him even to make it to 2007 to have a one in 20 voice in the renegotiation of the Sky deal. I think there could be a realistic possibility of the Premiership expelling Man U at some point in the future- a simple device of adopting the rules on indebtedness proposed by UEFA would achieve the expulsion without resorting to bringing the battle onto TV rights but it would be Man U being greedy over TV rights which would precipitate the vote. Lets see what the reaction of the other 19 clubs is when Glazer finally isues his delayed offer to buy the 24% of the shares he does not already hold. The delay in making the offer must be painful as it is extending the period over which the bridging loan is running. Here's hoping the Mancs lose the FA Cup and are thereby denied the winner's £1m prize money. It would be nice to see the Mancs exit the Premiership into the Coca Cola Championship League rather than the European Championship League.

Ok, a somewhat more serious post this time. Had a little trawl through the Newcastle site to see what's going on and picked up Fat Freddie saying he "wants to clear the decks" before Souness starts signing anyone. Obviously FF knows very little about his Manager's track record at Ewood. Apart from his first two summers, Rovers were left without: - a left back - a left winger - and most recently, a centre forward who is neither unlucky nor stands taller than 5' 6". When the window closes on 30 September it will be interesting to see where the gaps in the bar codes' squad are! As it is, FF proudly announced he was going to Lisbon for the meeting of the G14 this week (in as loose a sense as any of us can say we are going to London for the Cabinet or Bank of England Monetary Policy Meeting- unless you happen to be Jack Straw reading this!) when he was in reality begging Sporting Lisbon to give him as much of his £8.5m back for Hugo Viana as he could possibly get (probably not a lot). Then Kluyvert is definitely out (Big Sam's misfits seems to be the favoured destination). Hughes has gone, Bellamy won't even cross the threshhold for the start of Intertoto training next week whilst Robert seems certain to be on his way. Brum want Butt (Savage replacement but they are in the market for so many midfielders I wonder if they are preparing for life without Dunn). Given seems certain to go. Then the heavenly twins, Bowyer and Dyer, are still around to spread harmony on Tyneside both having received so many final warnings that the term is utterly meaningless. So much for FF's clear out.

Well they've had their transition. Next season there's a full-on relegation battle to look forwards to.

BBC Interview. Hope he plays football better than he talks! With Man U complaining to FIFA, this case still has the possibility of causing changes to the way Agents are allowed to operate.

This is good news for Rovers! If Glazer is planning to steal TV revenue from the other Premiership clubs, he is going to get no help from the EU Commission to do it.

No news about additions to the G14. I found this story hard to believe because: 1) Chelsea haven't applied 2) Newcastle fulfill virtually no criteria for admission apart from having a gobby chairman. 3) If Newcastle AND Chelsea had been admitted, at least another six clubs around Europe would have to be admitted and another twenty would cry foul. Back to Souness and Newcastle- The latest is that Shay Given has criticised Newcastle's performance last season as unacceptable. As close to saying get me out of this madhouse and into a proper football club as he dare. Owen is going nowhere near the St James' mad house. So Souness is back up at Ibrox supporting the Murray charity basket case. Having already sent £18.8m to the cause from Rovers and Newcastle, he is going to swell the coffers with an over-priced bid for Dado Prso.

A very good analysis by the ever-excellent Will hutton in The Guardian

I don't know whether that interview was a stitch up by an unsympathetic journo but if it isn't, Souness has lost his marbles. He makes no sense whatsoever if you read the extended version on the sky site. What is all this "I rest my case nonsense"? Andy Cole- second highest goal scorer in the history of the Prem whom Souness singularly failed to motivate/manage when Kegan and Ferguson had no problems getting him to play. David Dunn- is Souness saying he foresaw Dunny's injury problems which the Birmingham medical didn't detect or is Souness claiming credit for inflicting Dunn's problems? Craig Bellamy- seems that Martin O'Neill and Mark Hughes have a different opinion. Bellamy certainly showing he can play and score at a lower level and no doubt can still hack it back in the big time. Andy Todd- well and truly burying Souness' case against him and long may it continue. Over the second half of last season, showed himself to be a vastly superior defender to the £8m Boumsong signed by.... Dwight Yorke- which misguided Manager paid £2m for him when Ferguson had already binned him as demotivated and therefore no good? Perhaps worth asking why Souness ONLY fell out with him once in a training session when most Rovers fans would have fallen out with Yorke EVERY training session.

Very smart new look - well done! Unfortunately the board rejected me when I tried to post this message and I had to log in again! One suggestion re navigation - would it be possible to go direct between the MB and ICBNF without having to go up one step to the menu to move across?

I agree with Darth Paul. Whilst it would be fun to relive 61/2 or whaenever it was with 9 Lancashire clubs in the top division, having Wigan and Preston provide a counter attraction to the area round Chorley which has traditionally been good Rovers supporting area would not be good. I expect Ipswich will have a bit too much for PNE in the play-off final.

Yes, well done Philly and congratulations to Scotty. I went back to my predictions and thought you had scored my prediction's accuracy wrongly when I looked at the top half- then I saw what I had predicted at the bottom end

When looking at our ebbing support, it is worth pointing out that for the second season running, we have recorded the worst home form of the non-relegated clubs by some margin. In coming 15th two seasons running, our combined record has been: Played 38 Won 10 Drawn 12 Lost 16 To what extent emptying terraces are feeding poor performances or poor performances are losing us the fans, there has got to be a relationship between the two factors. Clearly there has got to be some significant movement on the transfer front to generate a feel good factor amongst the fans this summer.

pg, Berlusconi has not resigned and will not resign- immunity from prosecution is a big incentive for hanging in there. I am assuming the 18 members of the G14. See http://www.g14.com/G14members/index.asp (swanky new web-site from "The Voice of Football Clubs") So no Old Firm or Newcastle and most significantly, no Chelsea but PSV v Porto is a G-14 Super League fixture. Abramovich interest at the moment is against the Super League- he needs a low profile respectability. Super League could make him a hate figure in the UK AND Russia (no Russian teams in it) and that is the last thing he wants. Besides which, one G-14 member- PSV - is quietly becoming a Chelsea feeder club. Where do you get 72 from?

The European Super League is not long term- it has to be 2006/7 if the Glazers are not going to get financially bloodied at OT. Glazer intray: Income generation schemes= Vodafone have three years left on their £9m a year main sponsorship deal with the Mancs. Chelski paid Emirates to go away to get a more lucrative deal but Glazer will struggle to find the many millions to make Vodafone walk. Any attempt to boost merchandising profits to the Mancs needs Nike agreement- its not a simple business of bringing American marketing flair over to the OT superstore and implementing. Season ticket prices etc for 05/06 are already advertised and being sold. (So the three most traditional ways of boosting income are neither easy nor immediate. Naming rights on OT are certain to be sold and rapidly- that emotive move might even motivate the Mancs to implement their boycott if its the Chucky Chips Bowl rather than the theatre of dreams) Media revenue schemes= Get more for TV rights- all tied up in Premiership, FA and UEFA collective deals (yes the Champs League is also a collective deal which the Mancs can do nothing about). No short term solution other than win them and boost income that way. However, little problem of... Cost control schemes= Sell Ferdinand for a pittance or see the wages structure zoom up (oops!) Get out of jail scheme= Set up Euro Super League NOW. Media rights concentrate at the top- Prem clubs get £20m a year each minimum and the Football League shares £24m between 72 clubs. Applying the same principle, £250m in TV revenue could be taken from the Prem and perhaps £250m from other leagues around Europe boosting G14 income by around £30m a club on average(enough to pay the Mancs' interest) but reducing the income for a club like the Rovers by over 50% Then overcome the issue of supporters not travelling to away games by playing some of the Euro Super League games in the Far East (a bit like the F1 circuit). Problems- 1) the Mancs would want to concentrate their own income in their own hands but the European Super League requires collective effort to set it up. The Mancs would want more than their equal share of media income but its got to be attractive enough to get the other G14 to vote for it 2) Persuade Berlusconi. Does Berlusconi want to continue using his political position to frustrate the Italian investigating magistrates?- I guess a Euro Superleague will go down as well with the fans of the 16 excluded Serie A clubs as it would play with Newcastle, Man City, Everton, Villa etc here so Berlusconi will not play ball if it makes him even more unpopular as Italian PM

It is obscene but nothing like the barbarism and brutality that is the reality of human trafficking. Quite apart from the new focus on Agents this episode has created, it shows comprehensively that Abramovich has Glazer by the balls even before Glazer has completed the purchase of the Mancs. First, Abramovich has put Ferdinand in mind of a 70% pay rise (and will undoubtedly sign Rio for a price which reflects a defecting player one year from a Bosman if Ferdinand doesn't put pen to paper on the new contract at OT). Immediately, the Mancs either have to raise their £79m a year wage structure thus wiping out their current profitability or they will lose the core of their defence. Second, Abramovich is showing he can whisk away whatever promising youngster the Mancs think can be their salvation by becoming the next "home" grown Beckham, Giggs or Scholes. Nothing like toppling the world's biggest club by giving it a substantial shove on the way down- Kenyon must be enjoying himself. Mikel probably will not be the last youngster to be profitably diverted but probably the most melodramatic.

Sorry to bang on about this but The Independent neatly encapsulates what is at stake: "The spectre of astronomical debts haunted the world's biggest football club last night as details emerged of the deal thathanded an American tycoon control of Manchester United. "Malcolm Glazer, the 76-year-old businessman who took over the Old Trafford giant on Thursday, sent fresh shockwaves through the club's huge fan base when he unveiled the full funding details of his £790m takeover. "He confirmed that he will borrow £540m to finance the deal and it is estimated that he will need to spend £46m a year in interest payments alone to service the debt. That equates to a staggering £126,164 per day before any capital repayments are made. The prospect of massive debts has been the main cause of trepidation among fans, who are also dismayed that a foreign tycoon with no background in football is on the verge of total control of their historic club. (American, I UNDERESTIMATED Glazer's cost of debt service- those numbers indicate that the debt he is taking on is pretty well junk status: i.e. the lenders expect a high risk of the loan going bad). "The interest payments are put in starker perspective when compared with United's profits. The projected payments of £46m a year are more than twice the club's annual profits of £19.4m for the whole of the last full financial year, to July 2004. The figures suggest that Mr Glazer could need to quadruple United's profitability to keep the club financially viable. "Precedent shows financial collapse is a possible result of over-borrowing. Leeds United were pushed to the brink of insolvency and then relegated from the Premier League last year as a result of a £60m loan they proved unable to service. (So £60m crippled Champions League semi-finalists Leeds and the Mancs who lost two rounds earlier this season are taking on debts NINE times bigger) "Despite Mr Glazer's huge debt-piling, some financial experts believe that United's new owner has a decent chance of dramatically improving United's financial fortunes. "A serial entrepreneur such as Glazer and his backers would not borrow large amounts of money unless there was a sensible way of recouping it," said Joe McLean, a football finance specialist within Grant Thornton's Recovery and Reorganisation team. Such ways, added Mr McLean, include ticket price hikes, brand expansion across Asia and America, and a revolutionary attempt to discard current collective television rights' deals and, long term, seek new world-wide solo television deals based around radical international leagues. So there you have it, for Glazer to succeed he will have to wreck the Blackburn Rovers we know now.

From this morning's Guardian: "Manchester United's greatest enemy for the moment is uncertainty, an emotion widely shared by the bulk of the clubs in the four national divisions with Cambridge United, who have gone out of the league and into administration, not least among them. There never was only one United. "The opposite happened at Stamford Bridge two summers ago when, with the arrival of Roman Abramovich, Chelsea's debts vanished overnight. At the last count of personal wealth Glazer was some £7bn worse off than Abramovich, not to mention being twice as old. Unlike Abramovich he needs a quick and healthy return from his investment. "Such contrasts will hardly ease the fears of United followers the world over. Attempting to soothe their nerves Glazer has promised to make £20m a season available for new signings, which would this summer bring Manchester United's spending power into line with Wigan Athletic's. "Old Trafford supporters have little option but to wait and see if their fears about hikes in admission prices and the cost of merchandise are justified. Glazer may indeed regard Manchester United as a cash cow but Martin Edwards was hardly a reincarnation of Andrew Carnegie, making a fortune by selling off his shares following the 1991 flotation. Business was business then and it still is, though with a vengeance. "All of which makes it a rum time for the Premier League to be telling Lord Terence Burns, the man engaged in a review of the Football Association, that the FA is unsustainable in its present form. Given the lack of a shark net to spare a club like Manchester United the attentions of financial hammerhead like Glazer, the FA might feel entitled to say the same about the Premier League. "Whatever happens tomorrow, up or down, Norwich City fans are now entitled to feel more at ease than those of Manchester United. Norwich's entire team cost a quarter of the sum United paid for Wayne Rooney and even if they are relegated, the club's future is secure. "Meanwhile, Old Trafford may be catching echoes of mocking laughter born on an easterly wind from somewhere the other side of the Pennines. Or to be more precise, Elland Road, Leeds."