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For £35m Andy Carroll will have to be John Toshack and Ian Rush rolled into one

Seventy-two minutes into his England career Andrew Thomas Carroll is a £35m striker who now walks the path of Ian Rush, Robbie Fowler, Michael Owen and Kenny Dalglish, who broke the British transfer record for him to soften the blow of losing Fernando Torres for £50m to Chelsea. And they say January is the dullest month.

This outlandish episode shoots straight to No1 in the Premier League compendium of fantastical splurges. While Britain’s economy shrinks, football’s spending rages on. More than ever goal-scorers are the must-have gods with Edin Dzeko (£27m), Darren Bent (£18m-£24m) and Luis Suárez (£23m) now joined by Torres and Carroll on the winter roundabout.

Spot the odd one out. In a recession, these all are extravagant acts but only Carroll can be described as a punt. Anfield’s raid on Tyneside is a spectacular riposte to

The US owners of the club see themselves as victims of rough justice and are fuelled by a sense of entitlement

To read through the 29 pages of the petition served by Tom Hicks on Liverpool’s board, the club’s lenders Royal Bank of Scotland and prospective buyers New England Sports Ventures is to enter a parallel universe. It is an initially heartwarming story of how a pair of far-sighted US investors bought “one of the most storied, successful and beloved football (soccer) clubs in Europe”, invested in the team to propel them to a golden period on the pitch and “helped to solidify Liverpool’s financial position”. Then, harmed through no fault of their own by the global recession, they found themselves the victim of an “epic swindle” by a bank determined to recover its money by any means possible and punish the owners by ensuring they got nothing back.

So, the tale goes, they were helped in this enterprise by an evil cabal of directors – the chairman, Martin Broughton, chief executive, Christian Purslow, commercial director, Ian Ayre and chief financial officer, Philip Nash – who were nothing more than “pawns” and “puppets” of RBS. They engaged in a “grand conspiracy”, rejecting or refusing to engage with a string of offers that would have realised more than the one they eventually accepted. The central thrust is the same one advanced energetically by their QC ,Paul Girolami, in the high court this week – that the board ignored higher offers and was prejudiced against the pair.

Not only that, they claim the so-called “home team” conspired actively to prevent Hicks and Gillett from refinancing their debt or pursuing their own sale, leaking stories to the press and attempting to undermine them at every turn. They “launched personal attacks” and fuelled “the unwarranted outrage of Liverpool FC supporters”. In the eminently quotable language that seems de rigueur for US writs issued by larger than life characters who are backed into a corner, they suggest Ayre, Purslow and Nash were out to line their own pockets by seeking approval for bonuses that would double their annual salaries.

There is, of course, another version of events. It is one told by the league table, showing Liverpool third from bottom after those owners fell out with each other, with the fans, with their former manager and finally with their lenders. And by the fact that RBS has been fully entitled to push the club into administration for some time because £237m loaned to it has been in default. And also by the fact that not a sod of turf has been disturbed at Stanley Park, where the pair once promised work would begin on a new stadium “within 60 days”.

It is a version that was this week accepted by an eminent high court judge – that Broughton had led an extensive and fair sale process that narrowed down 130 bidders to two that best seemed to secure the long-term future of the club and agreed a deal with one of them for the best price he could obtain at the time. And that he was fully entitled to act as he did because Hicks and Gillett had signed a binding corporate governance side letter giving him express permission to control appointments to the board and promising not to intervene in the sales process.

As Mr Justice Floyd indicated archly (they do arch very well, high court judges) why would Broughton – one of the UK’s best known businessmen and the chairman of British Airways – conspire with one of Britain’s biggest banks (now largely owned by the taxpayer) to get involved in a six-month process to conspire to steal an asset from its “owners” at below market value.

The burning sense of injustice also seems to be fuelled by the fact Hicks still appears to believe that he owns Liverpool, when it long ago passed into the hands of banks and equity companies that refinanced, traded and sought to recover that debt. The fans’ groups that have campaigned loud and long for the removal of the pair might also venture to suggest they have a stake in the club as well.

As has been well documented, Broughton was appointed to lead the sale process. Hicks and Gillett insisted at the time that he was their appointment and not that of the bank. In the writ they admit they “agreed” to appoint Broughton to accommodate the demands of RBS.

Reading the Hicks petition and, to a less emotive and explosive extent, his witness statement the to high court (also seen by the Guardian) you can almost – almost – begin to see why he feels so wronged. After all, he and Gillett stand to lose £144m in loans advanced to the club, an asset they believed they would one day be able to sell for at least the £515m Forbes valued it at rather than the £300m offer accepted from NESV.

The petition assiduously catalogues the £139m net spent on the playing squad (some of it squandered by Rafael Benítez, it must be said) and £30m on abortive plans for the ground. You can almost see Hicks glancing enviously down the M62 at another football institution loaded with leveraged debt to an even more extravagant extent and wondering why the wheels have come off at Anfield and not (yet, at least) for Malcolm Glazer. Through their distorted lens you can imagine them wailing at the injustice of it all and wondering why the model has not worked for them, when they have invested their own money, and appears to still be holding together for Glazer, who has not. Both appeared to hope for some broadband enabled pot of commercial gold at the end of the rainbow or a sale to a benefactor who would pay over the odds.

The answer, of course, is that Glazer’s purchase came off the back of a decade of sustained investment and success on the pitch that had transformed Old Trafford and made United into a money-making machine and so it has – so far – been able to shoulder the huge interest burden placed upon its balance sheet. Some – the “green and gold” brigade and the Red Knights among them – believe it will start to tell in the end. Liverpool had no new ground, needed investment and saw financial realities hit home when they failed to qualify for the Champions League.

If this week’s high court action was largely about playing for time and holding up the sale to NESV, last night’s dramatic intervention is aimed at doing the same. Whether this is part of a carefully orchestrated plan by Hicks that may yet cause RBS to wobble and place another buyer such as Mill Financial in the driving seat (a scenario that could yet also happen if Mill buys Hicks’ stake and repays the RBS loan) – or simply the last flailing roll of the dice by a desperate man who refuses to accept the game is up remains to be seen.

LiverpoolBusinessOwen Gibsonguardian.co.uk

• 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