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• Everton fans ‘want United to overhaul Liverpool’s 18 titles’
• ‘I know all the Everton fans want us to do it’

Wayne Rooney believes Everton fans are desperate for him to lead Manchester United to the Premier League title this season so they pass Liverpool’s record of 18 championship wins.

Sir Alex Ferguson’s side are on course to achieve that feat as they face West Ham United on Saturday in pole position. United are on 63 points, five clear of Arsenal, who have a game in hand, while the reigning champions Chelsea are four points further back.

Rooney, who left Everton to join United in 2004, said: “I grew up an Everton fan so to be part of the team to overtake Liverpool’s record would be brilliant. It would mean so much to us players as well as the fans.

“It is something I have been thinking about a lot. I know all the Everton fans want us to do it and hopefully we can. You look forward to every game at this stage and you’ve got to enjoy it, especially when

• Roy Hodgson does not expect players to try to force moves
• Liverpool manager will have money to spend in January

The Liverpool hierarchy have closed ranks on the futures of Fernando Torres and José Reina, with John W Henry, the club’s principal owner, insisting the squad will be enhanced and Roy Hodgson claiming the Spain internationals will not “insult fans” by agitating for transfers in January.

Hodgson conceded he was “not privy to” the contracts of Reina and Torres, after it emerged they were both granted release clauses in their latest deals amid concerns over the direction of the club under the former owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett. “I don’t know what is written in their contracts,” the manager said.

Liverpool’s lowly league position and an acceptance there will be no quick fix to the club’s problems under New England Sports Ventures has also raised concerns over the players’ futures. Hodgson, however, said Reina and Torres accept they have a responsibility to repair Liverpool’s fortunes and that the only major transfers in January will, circumstances permitting, be to the club rather than from it.

“The takeover has provided the stability, I believe, to remove any fears over the positions of the likes of Torres and Reina,” the Liverpool manager said. “I’m not concerned about it at all. There is no way the club is interested in selling those players or will be looking to sell them at any time.

“I can tell you Torres and Reina are training very well, and if they are unhappy and if they are wanting to get away they are making a damn good job of disguising it, because in training every day and in the matches their commitment seems to me to be as strong as ever. They are great favourites with the Liverpool fans and I can’t imagine for one minute they would insult Liverpool fans in any way by suggesting ‘we are unhappy, and we are only here for the good times’.”

Henry, NESV’s principal owner, issued a statement yesterday in response to the uncertainty over the Spanish pair and to reject claims Liverpool have no money to spend in January. “As everyone knows we are new to English football, but not to sport, and we are studying all options,” it read. “Opportunities and value will drive spending in January and in the future. We intend to build on the strength of the current squad, not undermine it. And I can reassure our supporters that we have no intention of allowing the team to be weakened going forward.”

Hodgson admitted he has not been given a specific budget for the next transfer window and that he expects NESV to be “very active” in the running of the club. He explained: “I envisage going to the board with a list of players we want, and I think they’ll want answers to their questions, such as what is the resale value, what is the salary value, what is the long-term value to the club etc. I have no problems with that. Even at Fulham Mohamed Al Fayed took a very active role. He never suggested who we should buy. What he normally did was allow us to buy them and then criticise us for them afterwards!”

The Liverpool manager has explained to NESV the difficulties of shopping in the January transfer window and, amid the optimism surrounding their recent £300m takeover, is wary of spending frivolously. “We all know January is often a market for clubs trying to move on players they don’t want,” Hodgson said. “I don’t want to be taking people’s leftovers. We’ve got those types of players ourselves. If we are going to improve we need better.”

But, while reiterating there will be no Manchester City or Chelsea-style investment at Anfield, Hodgson confirmed there are funds available in January. He added: “They have not quantified it [his budget] and made it that simple. That is the Sugar Daddy type of ownership, where the new owner comes in from abroad and throws money around. That’s not the way we intend to do it. We intend to do it on a much more strategic basis. I know they will back this club. I know they will invest in this club. I know they will help us bring in better players but they will want to make certain it is done right.”

LiverpoolRoy HodgsonPremier LeagueAndy Hunterguardian.co.uk

• Texan obsessed with Forbes magazine’s valuation of club
• Liverpool board were ready for opposition from Hicks

Martin Broughton, Christian Purslow and Ian Ayre – or the Liverpool Three, as they may soon be christened – always knew Tom Hicks would not go quietly if they decided as directors that the best, solid offers for the club were lower than the payday the Texan had set his mind on.

As his petition makes clear, even before the fevered allegations of “epic swindle” and conspiracies by the three directors and Royal Bank of Scotland, Hicks is obsessed with the valuation put on Liverpool by Forbes magazine. In their list of “Soccer Team valuations” 2010, Forbes make that value $822m (£514m), a figure, Hicks’s lawyers state with his frustration evident, “greatly exceeding Liverpool FC’s outstanding debt”.

That is the core of all his opposition to the deal the three – the proper majority on the board, the high court decided yesterday – agreed with New England Sports Ventures. It would pay off only the £200m Hicks’s and George Gillett’s holding company owes RBS, the cost of buying the club in the first place, and £100m of Liverpool’s other debts. Hicks simply believes it is not enough. His petition says he and Gillett, because of their “substantial efforts to ensure that Liverpool FC’s long, proud and successful history on the pitch will continue”, can get what Forbes reckons they should.

Whether the US finance magazine ever thought the valuations it works up to sell copies would be used quite so authoritatively in a court action in which Hicks is claiming “punitive damages that may exceed $1bn” from the Liverpool three personally, Forbes has not said.

Broughton has consistently argued, as in court yesterday, that of all interest communicated to buy Liverpool, some of which Hicks recites in his petition, only NESV and Peter Lim, the Singapore businessman, produced solid proposals and proof of funds. Some may agree Hicks has a point: Liverpool are surely worth more than £300m and NESV, led by John W Henry, has itself a steal. Broughton’s response, set out in court, is that after an exhaustive worldwide search, these were the best offers, and therefore this is the club’s true value.

The main reason for this lower valuation is the “acquisition debt” Hicks and Gillett borrowed from RBS to buy the club, then made it the club’s responsibility to service. Hicks’s petition nowhere mentions this, that he and Gillett borrowed that money, or that the club has had to pay around £40m interest a year to service it, or even that the money is still owed to RBS. “Messrs Hicks and Gillett have helped to solidify Liverpool FC’s financial position,” the petition says.

Some who have worked for Hicks say he always believes in his own mission, and has a warrior’s belief in taking his fight to the limit. Hicks placed his own baseball team, the Texas Rangers, into administrative bankruptcy last year after his holding company, Hicks Sports Group, defaulted on loans of $525m, which, as with RBS, banks that had lent it readily before the credit crunch decided they wanted back.

So Broughton, Purslow and Ayre were ready for opposition from Hicks – who, rather than Gillett, with whom he has also periodically rowed, is making all the running in this battle. Broughton took consistent, careful legal advice from the club’s solicitor, Slaughter & May, at every step, documenting the extensiveness of the sales process, and all communication with Hicks and Gillett, as directors and shareholders.

Yet even knowing Hicks would do everything he could to defend his position and seek more money, his moves have still shocked with their aggression. Rather than attend last Tuesday week’s board meeting, even by conference call, and argue the club should be securing more than £300m, Hicks attempted the ploy of sacking Purslow and Ayre, and replacing them not with acknowledged expert directors suitable for Liverpool, but his son Mack and Mack’s assistant.

That was when Broughton went on the attack, claiming, on advice from Slaughter & May, yesterday upheld in court, that Hicks and Gillett were committing “flagrant abuses of their undertakings”.

Then in the high court, Hicks’s lawyer, Paul Girolami QC, sought to argue that the “English directors” had ganged up on Hicks and Gillett, and kept them out of discussions, rejecting higher offers for Liverpool, for reasons unexplained.

After Hicks lost that case, and with the sale to NESV about to proceed, Hicks then launched this claim, which says Broughton, Purslow and Ayre did all this – schemed to secure a lower deal for Liverpool – because they were “caving to the demands of Liverpool supporters”, that Broughton “had become a mere puppet of RBS” and that they all indulged in a “grand conspiracy”.

Last night’s injunction, which Liverpool and RBS are seeking to overturn, came as a blow but, on a moment’s reflection, the further resistance from Hicks was not surprising. What jarred, though, was the violence of the language in this legal document, the descriptions – of “defendant Broughton and another unnamed co-conspirator”, the claim of an “epic swindle” – by a man who seems to believe he has brought solid success to Liverpool football club.

The claim reveals the great risks Broughton, Purslow and Ayre have been taking for, whatever Hicks’s petition says about their admittedly handsome bonuses, no huge advantage to themselves. He is suing them personally for “hundreds of millions of dollars in actual damages” and the billion dollar punitive damages. Their home addresses are printed in the petition, and Hicks is threatening them with this ruination, apparently seriously believing they conspired in an “epic swindle” to lose him the profit he thinks he should make on the sale.

As English football acclimatises to overseas ownership of its great clubs, which is still unique in the world game, those who run it should pause to ask a question: Can anybody quite believe that the future of Liverpool football club has been put at risk, and is being fought over, in a district court in Dallas, Texas?

LiverpoolBusinessDavid Connguardian.co.uk