well yeah, you could spin it off as simply an 'ex liverpool player', making it sound like he's a paul merson to arsenal or a dwight yorke to man utd to fit into your argument.

or you could see that he's been a huge part of liverpool throughout his career, has been for a number of years in terms of management too, and clearly still keeps in touch with people at the club. you dont need to know a board member to get info, especially if you have the status phil thompson has at liverpool

and noone ever said he knew our budget, stop making things up.

its common knowledge wenger didnt want to pay £16m for alonso, but if you want to sit there and act or pretend as if he did, or that the reason we didnt want to sign alonso was because of something else, then no problem. but wake up to reality.