The Liverpool co-owner George Gillet has been desperately wooing the Saudi billionaire Prince Faisal to try and persuade him to invest £300m, but with the club now out of the Champions League and struggling to keep up in the race for fourth place in the Premiership, the oil magnate has decided that the club is not such a good investment after all.

The People reports: Prince Faisal feels the asking price to buy out the club – £300million – is too high. And the option of taking just a 50 per cent stake does not appeal because the Saudi prince does not fancy a boardroom battle for power.

Kop sources now say that Gillett is taking a back seat and that Texan Hicks, the hard man of the duo, is calling the shots about future planning.

They go on to say that this will put paid to any chance of Rafael Benitez getting funds to improve the squad in January, and that the Spaniard may be forced to sell Macherano to fund his necessary purchases.

Benitez said yesterday that he has been hampered by the need to repay the massive debts hanging over the club, and now it looks like there won’t be any improvement in the near future.