Hicks; Bumbling Fool or Malicious Manipulator

I must have been expecting too much. That interview with Sky could have been a turning point for Tom Hicks; instead I'm left wondering if he is in reality so insular in his thinking " England, that's not far from Europe. right?" that he can only see the LFC problem in US franchise terms. What kind of advisors does he have? Is he taking any notice of them. It seems that whenever he is interviewed, only a couple of questions in, ego takes over and the editor in his brain, which should intervene between brain and mouth, shuts down.

Take this recent interview with Sky. A one year extension for Rafa? Who was that supposed to impress? Certainly not Rafa who has a right to feel he has served his apprenticeship and deserves a contract long enough for him to fully implement his plans. The fans, who were the target audience of this PR exercise will also not feel a one year extension is a convincing enough endorsement of the manager a vast majority of them revere. 

Then there is the question of his desire to buy out George Gillett. He made no attempt to disguise the fact that although George Gillett does not want to sell to him he, Hicks, was going to make him, like it or not. What does that indicate about his style of management should future issues with club staff or Manager and players comes up?

Hold on though, he hasn't got the funds himself to buy out Gillett and the fact that he talks about other investors tells us no lending institution regards him as safe enough or having assets enough to lend him the cash for Gillett's shares.

Hicks says he wants to lead a group of investors who will relieve the club of all debt apart from the normal working capital needs. How would that work? Hicks is in debt for virtually all of his share of the recent refinancing package. These mystery investors though are going to back Hicks up with real money whilst  he retains a majority, according to Hicks. So in less than 18 months time when the current loans are due Hicks will stump up at least 51% of the then value of the club in real money or loans secured on his own assets. If Hicks can't do it now how will he achieve it then, is the credit crunch going to melt away and the shackles come off the lending institutions in that time scale OR is this all BS , pie in the sky, which can neither be proved or disproved  BUT is what the fans want to hear?

Rick Parry gets another load in the neck in public. To describe our overall performance as a club in the Parry years as a disaster is way ott. I use the term "overall performance' because as CEO that is what Parry is accountable for. The playing side reports to him just as the marketing and administrative wings of the club do. He has overseen the recruitment of Gerard Houllier and Rafa Benitez and we have won a fair few trophies, so there have been plusses. To put down our falling behind Man U solely down to the marketing side is naive. We are at least 3 major signings behind which is down to the funding situation not to Rick Parry's admin. failings. Rick Parry remember remains an employee, accountable to the Board of Directors and as such does not enjoy the same freedom as Hicks to defend his position in public. Hicks knows this hence the bully boy tactics.

On to Klinsmann. Classic diversionary strategy here. The real question to be answered and not put in the interview is, who offered Rafa's job to Klinsmann? No way was it done at the first meeting when the full Board was present. It can only have been done at the meeting in Hicks' place in California. We know it went that far because Klinsmann said so. Hicks doesn't want this question put because he knows it will negate all the cosying up he has been doing with Rafa. So Hicks keeps harping; "Gillett was a friend of Klinsmann's he set the meeting up" to deflect awkward issues.

The window dressing, the family in the background, the family's regret at not being able to come to Anfield for the half dozen times a season he can tear himself away from Dallas; all may be sincere but may be down to the PR boys or the Sky producer. Our fans regard football as essentially a man's game and a retreat from family or job concerns so this kind of embellishment is unlikely to wash. Against possible sincerity you could put the anecdotal evidence of some fans who post the gossip that as far as young Hicks and his mates are concerned, LFC is a drinking club with a football problem. Also the paparrazi did Hicks and son no favours in catching them looking bored stiff and stifling yawns at the Arsenal away CL leg.

Once again Hicks either wont answer questions on or is having none of the veto time limit. Some fans claiming legal knowledge say that there is no way a contract provision that allows Hicks to perpetually block Gillett is legally sustainable. So either, Hicks is bluffing and hoping that other financial needs will force Gillett to the bargaining table or, there is a specific time limitation on his pre-emption rights and he is upping the ante, lashing out at Parry and Gillett in an attempt to force the issue before time runs out.

All in all Hicks could have done much better with this interview. He could have come completely clean with the fans, pleaded for a second chance and laid out properly the substance behind his grandiose plans. He missed the opportunity not out of a bumbling accident prone inability to stick to his script, but because, in my opinion, his manifest unpopularity is hindering his attempts to convince the mystery investors to back him and all this new "man of the people" stuff is a callous attempt to get enough fans on side until he gets what he wants.

Remember, that throughout this interview the emphasis was not on how we are going to re-establish ourselves as the No 1 team in the country but on how he is going to put the club's debt situation and shirt-selling capability back on track. 

Not for me folks I'm not buying.

Speaking up for Rick Parry

We've all had a go at Rick Parry in the past, some of us have had good reason for anger when you think back to the ticket fiasco for the Athens final. I have joined in as well but to have a go is our privilege as fans, it keeps these guys honest. However, the stuff in that letter from Hicks and the abuse Parry has had in the media and on various fans forums and blogs seemed to me to be kicking the guy when he is down. I've had a good think back over my own criticisms of him and now think that he has not had a fair shake. Hicks exaggerated Parry's failing for his own reasons, he needs the fans on side so he thinks us suckers will swallow whatever he puts down.

The Klinsmann business and Rick Parry.

When this news came out the fans’ reaction was one of complete incredulity not about the fact that there was a succession plan being discussed but at the name of Klinsmann. How could anyone who had the least knowledge of this club or English football consider Klinsmann as a suitable replacement for Rafa Benitez? Rick Parry’s name never came up in fans protest posts on the subject nor was he quizzed on it because it was assumed, I’ve no doubt, that the CEO who effectively recruited both Gerard Houllier to succeed Roy Evans and subsequently Rafa Benitez to succeed Houllier could not have supported the appointment of such a complete rookie. Yet the credence given to Rick Parry by his detractors when accused by Tom Hicks of being one of the prime movers is - Nil! Hicks version and his assertion that he was merely a facilitator of the meetings - supported without challenge. 

The letter inviting Rick Parry to resign. 

If there is a documented case of Rick Parry ever having been caught lieing to the media or in private briefings I am unaware of it. Yet this unimpeached integrity counts for nothing when he states on camera and for the record that he learned of the contents from family members. Again the credence afforded him by some on fans forums and blogs- nil. Hicks or his son have been reported to have had a hand in getting the contents of the letter wide publicity but , it seems, the only thing written about is on the dubiousness of Parrys’ claim the he didn't see it until later.

So what,it might be said, Parry has only himself to blame, he was at the meetings with Klinsmann, hasn’t he screwed up and cost us the chance to be as big as Man U in marketing and merchandising and lost us transfer after transfer target. What, apart from assumption and gossip, is the evidence for this and has it been challenged in the interests of balance? Not that I can read.  

I believe there is another view that in fairness and the interests of balance should be put. Those are the only reasons I intercede on Rick Parry’s behalf as I am not a hypocrite and do believe he has not been a patch on Peter Robinson as the club’s main interface with the world outside the club and indeed with the fans. My antipathy however is based on what I know to be the case over issues like the ticketing fiasco and the lack of communication for long periods on the stadium.

So what could have been offered to counter the “exaggerated” case against him? On Klinsmann people close to Parry are said to protest that he was ordered to the meeting in New York. We don’t know what the agenda for the meeting was or whether it was formally set up and minuted. If you believe what is flying around on this more will come out eventually, who knows? My point is, it is entirely logical and indeed acceptable for a succession plan to be considered at that stage and by such a senior gathering. It is surely within the responsibilities of the CEO to have in place a contingency plan should a serving key official resign or need to be replaced. I heard no criticism of our CEO when the succession of Roy Evans by GH and GH by RB was smoothly handled, it being obvious the the succeeding manager had to have been approached while the incumbent was still at his desk. 

And what might have pushed succession planning to the fore? Results at the time of the Klinsmann approach were going well and hope remained that we could put in a challenge for the Premier League title. There was a vocal minority of fans anti-Rafa because of “rotation”, still is for that matter albeit less vocal recently, but there is no suggestion that this figured in either of the joint-owners’ or Parry’s thinking. So logically there are two issues which could have impacted: first the possibility existed of an early exit from the Champion’s League and second there were renewed rumours of an approach from Real Madrid to Rafa. In my view the first is a weak argument and would have been low in Parry’s evaluation of risk. The teams in the group were eminently beatable and Rafa’s track record in Europe gave grounds for optimism that we would eventually progress. The second point was though, worthy of consideration by Parry and he will have been conscious of the coincidence of the appearance of such stories at times when Rafa’s stock at the club needed a fillip. So a fair argument is possible that Rick Parry was acting prudently in making sure the contingency plans were up to date. 

How to put a case up to counter the transfer and marketing accusations is, I’ll concede, more problematical. All I can offer is a similar unsubstantiated opinion to the “Parry cost us Ronaldo, Malouda and Walcott” stuff taken as proven fact by some fans. Despite the funding problems of the late Moores era Gerard Houllier was generally able to obtain all of the players he targeted. Rick Parry was instrumental in obtaining the signatures of Diouf and Diao before those players took part to good effect in the World Cup that summer. Their subsequent failure and the setback the waste of valuable funds represented cannot be laid at Rick Parry’s door . Gerard Houllier must take responsibility for that summer of lost opportunity. The cumulative effect of those purchases and the clubs’ inability to raise additional revenues without recourse to the private wealth of David Moores could not have made Rick Parry’s job easy when it came to fulfilling promises made to Rafa Benitez when he was appointed (by Parry it should be remembered). 

Rafa Benitez did not openly express any dissatisfaction with the funding made available until the comments after the Athens defeat. Those comments were pointed clearly at the american co-owners and when they were repeated at the time of the mid-season transfer window, Tom Hicks reacted famously and Rafa lost the deals for a senior player plus two frees from South America that he had targeted. none of this was due to prevarication on Parry’s part. The money was not going to be made available nor was any preparatory work allowed until the co-owners flew in for their end of year visit. Subsequently Sissoko was sold, for silly money some say (kudos to Parry?) and Skrtl obtained with change from the Sissoko proceeds.

The Mascherano affair is still open to question. Rafa claimed all was well and terms had been agreed from as early as November but the deal was signed off much later after the official transfer window had closed. Was that down to sluggishness or lack of ability on Parry’s part? Or, was it due to the fact that the co-owners, having already fallen out with each other, would not sanction the fee, leaving Parry to perform financial gymnastics to sort out the portion of the overall fee payable to Joorabchian. I know what I believe and it does no discredit to Parry. 

So what are we left with to justify the charges against Parry. We signed Pennant instead of Malouda? We don’t sell enough shirts in the Far East? We’ve only opened one shop outside Liverpool? On the other hand we successfully transferred Torres and Babel in, deals arranged by Parry with the new owners only involved in signing the cheques. It doesn’t add up to grounds for instant dismissal in my view nor for the “he goes or I go” stance Rafa is said to be adopting. So those are my grounds for viewing the references to Parry as exaggerated. You can argue with my "case for the defense" but you can't argue with his right to have one. 

The Height of Insensitivity?

On the Anfieldroad.com blog a poster claiming to be a friend of Tom Hicks jnr has been up to high jinks for the last few weeks winding up the anti-Hicks posters on the blog. All good fun until yesterday. Most of the regular posters gave the ownership crap a rest yesterday out of respect but there were posts on the memorial service and the article by Jim Boardman on the 96 is the best you will ever read and should be printed out and put on every seat at the next Anfield match. 

But I digress. This joker calls himself Texas-dawg and he responds to most comments on the ownership threads so must read all the articles and the comments. He can't have missed the ones on Hillsborough and the time of the service. What does he do? At 2.54pm and 2.58pm yesterday on he comes with posts on Hicks. he keeps it up later in the day despite one regular pulling up him for posting.

Now as this guy has reveled in his connection with the Hicks crew you could wonder whether he runs his posts and the stuff he reads on the blog by young Hicks. I don't know but would give Hicks the benefit of any doubt. He may be a stone cold businessman but nothing he has done would tell you he would stoop so low as this so-called fellow Texan. 

Some questions need to be asked because although this day might mean zilch to some others it does mean something to us. Now we've got no right to impose respect on people not connected with our club but hey there have been posts of sympathy on the Man U and Everton sites too, for which our respect by the way, so is it too much to expect this from this Texas-dawg. 

 

Bizarro World

Remember the old Superman comics when he went into a parallel universe? That's how I feel reading the new rash of posts on various sites saying perhaps we have to settle with Hicks. None of them actually makes a case for Hicks. What they do is show how Parry Moores and Gillett are the real villains and DIC? Well what do we know about them? They might borrow they might not keep Rafa, the sheikh might not be a real fan etc. Its like because they have not given assurances on these matters they must be planning the worst. Weird logic or what?

It's an altered reality. In this “reality” to blow the whistle is more heinous than the lies and wrongdoing being exposed. Where David Moores and Rick Parry after months of dignified silence finally speak. Moores in exasperation at the circus he sees playing itself out daily and Parry in the face of appalling public humiliation yet on some sites their deciding to hit back in kind is ridiculed and condemned as hypocrisy over the “Liverpool Way”.  

Even today from the Echo we get more reinvention of history. Remember the “Gillett is the bigger villain campaign” by the Hicks crew, weren’t we assured that the Klinsmann business was down to Gillett already knowing him and that Tom was just along for the ride? Now we find that Hicks was the one to hold the in depth one-on-one session with Klinsmann at his home and further that he has been seeking Klinsmanns’ input on LFC team issues since. Yet on the blogs the emphasis is on who let the cat out of the bag and why would they do that? Not on the lies and backstabbing nature of the “lesser of two evils”. And all this is a way of doing business that we must resign ourselves to? Why? because a case is made to prove the others are Hitler we should settle for Mussolini because he makes the trains run on time? As I said an altered reality!

Another Day, Another Leak, Another Crisis

If it was happening at any other club we would be in fits laughing. But it is our club that is providing entertainment for our rivals on a daily basis. as hard as Rafa strives to get something worthwhile out of the season so the clowns above him work just as hard to undermine all he achieves.

This current revisit of the Klinsmann business seems a simple enough matter of Hicks retaliating for Parry's defiance in going into work and garnering support from both Gillett and Moores. The leak of the fact that Parry attended the talks with Klinsmann could only hurt Parry in the eyes of the fans and Rafa. So to me it is a no brainer as to where it came from. As the CEO at the time Parry would have been told to attend the meeting. To refuse to do so would have cost him his job. How do we know it wasn't Parry or someone close to him who leaked news of the approach to Klinsmann to Rafa back in November when the whole circus kicked off. Think about it, Rafa found out that Klinsmann had been tapped up up but there was no mention of Parry. The source of the leak either did not know of Parry's involvement or was protecting Parry and simply wanted to warn Rafa of what the two owners were up to behind his back.

This is a real crisis for the club and a time when all fans need to make there support for the manager and the squad known. regretably we still have posters complaining that time is spent "moaning" about the mess these americans have gotten us into and why don't we concentrate on the team etc. Its like, your only supposed to use one brain cell at a time and can't do both. At the Man U match I was sat in the main stand and at half time the guys around me were discussing then ownership mess. One guy sat there reading his paper until just before the second half kicked off and said "You people don't have any right to go on about our owners, the club belongs to them end of. Anyway nothing can happen without the FA's approval so what are you worried about" We were gobsmacked. 

These people are like the idiots who never vote in a general election but moan like f*ck when the country goes down the pan. Of course there are fans who just want to go to the match on Saturday then go home and forget about football until next week but when posters come on sites trying to stop more involved or concerned fans expressing their concerns then that only helps the likes of Hicks who only wants yes men around him at the club and sucker fans who pay any price to watch the match in a shiny new stadium.

Liverpool 3 Blackburn 1

A comfortable win and Rafa will be pleased that Blackburn presented such a feeble challenge after Tuesday's exertions. Another fine 90 minutes from Skrtl and it is a tribute to him that Jamie Carragher now seems to have total confidence in him. Arbeloa and Aurelio are Rafa's preferred choice when we need to add an extra attacking dimension. Stevie and Torres are the form attacking duo in the Premier League just now and today was a gilt-edged show from them especially in the second half.

We seem to have suddenly discovered how to take set pieces. We threatened from all of the ones awarded to us but maybe that was down to the poor opposition. Babel still cannot get the trip which is odd in an athlete his age. Whatever, it was the right substitution at the right time and that is another departure from Rafa's norm, earlier in the season he would have waited another 10 minutes or so. Benayoun played well in the time he was on and as usual Kuyt more than earned his corn. 

Almost a training game really, the drama was introduced by the referee. How many times have we seen a ref bottle his first big decision and have problems from then on. I had to laugh at the commentator at half time talking about a disallowed goal - the flag was up, the whistle had gone and reina simply allowed the shot to pass him!

Management for Dummies, by T. O. Hicks. Chapter 4: Performance Appraisal

Conventional management wisdom has it that a performance review of a CEO should be carried out at Board level in private with the employee (CEO) present to discuss his/her performance against benchmarks, targets and competencies. I don't think this gets the job done and I will demonstrate the method I advocate by means of a case study:

Liverpool Football Club

Background: The CEO was hampering club progress so needed to be canned asap.

Form of Appraisal: Issue a letter affording the CEO the opportunity to resign.

Venue: No need for a formal meeting. Leak the letter to the media so that it's terms are in the public domain before the individual can react.

Performance against Benchmarks: As detailed in the letter 

Performance against targets:        ditto

Competencies: Ignore as you wouldn't be getting rid if he/she had any

Comments by jobholder:     of no particular relevance