The Liverpool owner Tom Hicks has announced that the club will not be in financial trouble if they fail to reach the Champions League knockout stages, and they won’t need to sell any of their stars to balance the books.

He told the Sunday Mirror: “None of our star players will be sold, regardless of results.

“The club is doing very well due to rapidly growing commercial revenues.

“We have significant investor interest and want to make sure that we pick high-quality partners.

“We are happy with the way things are going financially but we hoped things would be better on the pitch.”

Yesterday, Benitez was also upbeat about the financial side of the club after having a meeting with Liverpool’s managing director.

“I spoke to Christian Purslow (Liverpool’s managing director) the other day about the finances,” said the Spaniard.

“The first thing, though, is that we have confidence we can still reach the last 16 of the Champions League this season.

“But whatever happens, the budget was done for this season based on us only qualifying for the group stages. And we did that, that is complete.

“Whether we can still bring in more money, we will wait and see. The commercial department is working very hard, for the next season (in Europe) it is a question of time.”

Now they just have to sort out the problems on the pitch, starting with a win against Birmingham tomorrow.