Soccer: New Liverpool owner John Henry admits there is a "real challenge" ahead and plans to start work on a strategy for improvement immediately. New England Sports Ventures, of which Henry is head, completed their protracted €340 million takeover yesterday.
NESV have a good track record in improving teams, with their significant investment in the Boston Red Sox baseball franchise after a 2001 buy-out bringing two World Series titles after a long drought.
Henry has had plenty of time to make an assessment of the situation at Anfield as a sale was agreed 10 days ago but has been the subject of numerous court disputes by former owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett.
And now his group have taken control the project can begin.
"We're going to have to work very hard," he said. "There's a lot of work to be done to get this club to where it needs to be in the grand scheme of things.
"We really, through all the work we've done over the last two months, saw the challenges and problems which exist and we've got to work to address those.
"There is a great nucleus here off the field and on the field and we think we can build from that, but it's not going to be easy.
"We've got real challenges but we've got a very strong organisation, financially and otherwise, we have some terrific strategic thinkers and we're going to be attacking this head-on."
Liverpool will at least move forward as a virtually debt-free club as the takeover wiped out all the loans and costs associated with the purchase of the club three-and-a-half years ago by Hicks and Gillett.
A result of those loans was the crippling interest payments of €35 million a year - which are now a thing of the past.
NESV said the club's debt servicing costs would drop to around €3 million annually and manager Roy Hodgson already has his eye on an expanded transfer kitty.
"The mere fact the debts are wiped off immediately puts us into a different financial position to the one we have been in," he said. "It will mean in future we can invest in players in a different way to what has happened in the last transfer window."
Although the sale has been completed, there remains the threat of further legal action from Hicks and Gillett.
Even though they withdrew their €1.15 billion lawsuit, claiming an "epic swindle", lodged in Dallas, they are plans afoot to return to the High Court in London - where their attempts to block a sale were thwarted this week.
"Mr Hicks and Mr Gillett have withdrawn without prejudice their Texas lawsuit in order to fully comply with the order of the English court," said Fish & Richardson attorney Tom Melsheimer.
"We believe the order is overbroad and unfair, yet Mr Hicks and Mr Gillett respect the legal process.
"We believe that once the English court finally has a chance to hear all the facts, a very different picture will be painted."
Hicks, who with Gillett has lost £144million in the deal, claimed Royal Bank of Scotland - the club's main creditors who forced the sale - and chairman Martin Broughton had breached his trust.
"This has been an organised conspiracy over many months," he told Sky Sports.
"I can confirm there were funds available to pay off the bank completely but between RBS, the chairman and employees that conspired against us, they would not let us.
"I just want the truth to come out in the courts. It isn't over."