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• Paul Hayward: Liverpool take first step out of the darkness
• Hodgson signs three-year deal and will be unveiled today

Roy Hodgson has been confirmed the 18th manager in Liverpool’s history this morning, having finalised the terms of his departure from Fulham.

The 62-year-old arrived at Melwood, the club’s training ground, in time to meet the first batch of players reporting back for pre-season training today and will be publicly unveiled at Anfield at 1.30pm. He has signed a three-year contract to succeed Rafael Benítez, not the two-year deal that was originally suggested as Liverpool look for stability following a turbulent period under the debt-ridden regime of Tom Hicks and George Gillett.

• Paul Hayward: Hodgson must purge obscure players
• This will herald a new Liverpool era – Thompson
• From Halmstad to Anfield: a well-travelled manager
• Hodgson is the right man for Liverpool – Murphy

Hodgson was voted Manager of the Year by the League Managers’ Association last season, having guided Fulham to the Europa League final, and had to negotiate bonus payments from the Craven Cottage club before completing his move to Merseyside. Liverpool also had to pay a £2.5m compensation clause to release Hodgson from his 12-month rolling contract with Fulham.

“This is the biggest job in club football and I’m honoured to be taking on the role of manager of Britain’s most successful football club,” said the former Internazionale, Udinese and Switzerland coach. “I look forward to meeting the players and the supporters and getting down to work at Melwood.”

Hodgson’s appointment has not received universal acclaim by Liverpool supporters, although his European pedigree and success in transforming Fulham’s fortunes on a modest budget made him the favoured choice of the Anfield hierarchy.

Liverpool’s managing director, Christian Purslow, who Benítez claimed was behind his departure as manager and who led the search for the Spaniard’s successor, was the target of graffiti found on the walls of the stadium this morning.

The new Liverpool manager faces a difficult task of reviving a club who finished seventh in the Premier League last season and are beset by financial problems, with the American co-owners’ asking price for the club discouraging potential investors. He must also convince Steven Gerrard, Fernando Torres and Javier Mascherano, three leading players whose Liverpool futures are uncertain, to resist any rival offers for their services this summer.

Roy HodgsonLiverpoolAndy Hunterguardian.co.uk

Today’s tell-all wants you to join it, to form a new kind of government for Britain

With just one day to go before polling begins, the Rumour Mill has finally launched its manifesto, which is critical to persuading a wavering readership that we should remain the go-to source of daily football speculation for discerning football fans, despite our occasional tardiness, that controversial decision to do away with the comments section and an occasional over-reliance on spurious hearsay linking Bordeaux’s Marouane Chamakh with a big-money move to assorted high profile English clubs.

We appreciate that a football transfer rumour column is at its best when the bonds between speculation-purveyor and reader are strong and when the sense of purpose is clear. Today the challenges facing those who round-up and regurgitate the world’s football transfer tittle-tattle five mornings a week are immense. Liverpool are in turmoil, Manchester City’s financial resources are bottomless and Hull City are potless. But these problems can be overcome if we pull together and work together. If we remember that we are all in this together.

Some football transfer news columns say: ‘read us and we’ll reveal that Chelsea are on the verge of sticking it to Manchester City by launching a £70m bid for Liverpool striker Fernando Torres. We say: relations between Torres and Rafael Benitez are at such a low ebb that the only slight chance Liverpool have of holding on to their striker is if their manager leaves, at which point he could be temporarily replaced by a Kenny Dalglish and Ian Rush dream-ticket.

Yes this is ambitious. Yes it is optimistic. But in the end all the talk linking Manchester City striker Valeri Bojinov with a permanent £4m move to Parma after his successful loan spell, 25-year-old Sampdoria striker Giampaolo Pazzini with Arsenal and West Brom midfielder Graham Dorrans with a £5-10m move to West Ham is just that: talk, without you and your involvement.

How will we deal with the debt crisis unless Rafa Benitez brings Ajax’s well-travelled Serbian striker Marko Pantelic to whatever club he’s managing at later this summer? How will we raise responsible children unless Bolton manager Owen Coyle quickly decides whether or not to make on-loan-from-Bordeaux striker Ivan Klasnic a permanent fixture at the Reebok Stadium before his recently relegated French owners Nantes flog him elsewhere? How will we revitalise communities unless people stop asking ‘Is Steve Bruce really prepared to give Wigan Athletic £9m for Chris Kirkland and Maynor Figueroa?’ and start asking ‘Is Ipswich Town captain and midfielder Jon Walters worth the £4m Stoke manager Tony Pulis is ready to pay for him?’ Britain will change for the better when we all elect to take part, to take responsibility – if we all come together. Collective strength will overpower our problems and possibly result in watercooler gossip linking Tottenham outcast Robbie Keane with a move to Everton in exchange for Steven Pienaar.

Only together can we can get rid of this government and ease the passage of 20-year-old Icelandic goal-getting midfielder and dead-ball specialist Gylfi Sigurdsson from Reading to Newcastle United. Only together can we get the economy moving. Only together can we encourage pub chit-chat linking Manchester United with bids for CSKA Moscow midfielder Milos Krasic or Tottenham’s Croatian dynamo Luka Modric. Improve the chances of Benfica winger Angel Di Maria agreeing to move to Real Madrid, leaving Sir Alex Ferguson and Carlo Ancelotti feeling rejected. Mend our broken society. Together we can even convince goalkeeping legend Gianluigi Buffon to move to Arsenal if their move for Joe Hart falls through, because his own club Juventus has failed to qualify for the Champions League. And if we can do that, we can do anything. Yes, together we can do anything.

So the Rumour Mill’s invitation today is this: join us, to form a new kind of government for Britain.

ChelseaLiverpoolSunderlandArsenalWigan AthleticTottenham HotspurReadingNewcastle UnitedIpswich TownStoke CityWest BromBarry Glendenningguardian.co.uk

• It can actually help team spirit, manager says of 24-hour trip
• Fernando Torres unfit even for a place in the stands

Rafael Benítez believes he will send a more united Liverpool into tonight’s Europa League semi-final against Atlético Madrid as a result of the club’s arduous 24-hour journey to the Spanish capital.

On the basis that every volcanic ash cloud has a silver lining, the Liverpool manager last night claimed team spirit had been enhanced by taking three trains, several coaches and one flight to Spain following the closure of UK airspace and Uefa’s refusal to delay the first leg at the Vicente Calderón.

Liverpool arrived in Madrid at 1.30pm yesterday, rested at the team hotel and took part in a light training session at the stadium in the evening. And Benítez is confident the one positive of the trip can outweigh any fatigue against Atlético, who have reached the semi-final despite winning only one of their last 12 European games.

“I don’t think the players have enjoyed the journey,” said the Liverpool manager. “But it has been good to see how everyone has stuck together. It has given them an opportunity to stay together, talk and share some things, and we have to use that as a positive. It has given everyone a better team experience.

“I am sure they will be tired, but it can actually help the team spirit when everyone has something like this in common. If we were on a plane for one or two hours, as we would normally be for a game like this, then everyone would be just watching a film or on their PlayStations. Now they are talking more and doing more things together. At the train stations you could see that instead of simply sticking to their normal groups, they have been talking to each other in different groups and moving around. This can help us.”

Benítez watched Barcelona’s Champions League semi-final, first-leg defeat at Internazionale during an overnight stay in Paris and dismissed the suggestion that travel fatigue played a part in the Catalans’ surprise 3‑1 loss. “I don’t think it was a factor,” he said. “Barcelona had plenty of possession, but they made two or three mistakes and Inter were dangerous on the counterattack.”

He also believes Liverpool have taken precautions to limit the impact of the trip on the players. “Hopefully the journey will not have an effect on our physical performance and will be a positive in terms of the spirit of the team,” Benítez added. “It was important we decided to rest in Paris because that gave the players a night to sleep, and it will help to regenerate them by doing some training in Madrid.”

Liverpool have yet to discover their route back from Madrid, although travel representatives hope to secure a flight to northern Britain after tonight’s game. Fernando Torres, who will again miss an emotional reunion with his former club having undergone knee surgery on Sunday, is not expected to return to Vicente Calderón, even as a spectator. The Liverpool striker has been advised to continue his rehabilitation from the operation in Barcelona.

England’s other Europa League semi-finalists, Fulham, had a 600-mile journey from south London to the German Baltic port of Hamburg, which ended at 4pm. “It was 17 hours [on the road] from leaving Motspur Park [the training ground] to arriving at the Hyatt in Hamburg,” said Roy Hodgson, the manager. “But three hours of that was standing in a queue thanks to a traffic accident on the autobahn.”

The Fulham goalkeeper, Mark Schwarzer, said team spirit had remained intact despite the testing circumstances. “I’d say the atmosphere has been very good,” the Australian added. “We have a very good relationship anyway in the team. A really long trip can either pull the team apart or to the contrary and I’d say it’s pulled us all together.”

LiverpoolRafael BenítezFulhamUefa Europa LeagueAndy HunterJamie Jacksonguardian.co.uk