Liverpool’s a great result for the Manchester United campaign

As a Fulham season-ticket holder, I've become sadly used to losing our best players to richer clubs. Among those that hurt the most were Edwin van der Sar and Louis Saha, both sold to Manchester United. For United fans to experience what it is like to follow a "selling club" would at least offer some sort of bitter-sweet compensation.

The fact that Rooney is staying changes little about the club's financial condition — despite the mutual backslapping among the Old Trafford management and owners. Having him remain is a boost, but United is desperately in debt. All his threatening and climbing-down illustrated was just how precarious that is.

United needs new owners. The faithful are anxious for new owners as their continued wearing of the original green and yellow colours of the club shows. English football requires a new model of ownership. The Glazers should proceed to negotiate their departure from the club with, having secured Rooney's signature, their heads held up slightly higher. The Red Knights, the group of wealthy supporters drawn from the City and business, should try again.

When they first attempted to assemble sufficient numbers and backing in the form of pledges, their efforts broke down — mainly because would-be members baulked at the price likely to be demanded by the Glazers, said to be in the order of £1.2 billion to £1.5 billion. Gathering enough high-rollers to stump up sufficient cash proved to be a nightmare. That's not to say there weren't multi-millionaires interested and willing — they just didn't get the number they needed.

But that figure is fanciful. The Glazers should take a careful look at the sale of Liverpool, also to Americans, for £300 million. John Henry paid 8.5 times ebitda for United's arch-rivals.

If that multiple was applied to United, it would be worth £850 million, a much more achievable proposition than the earlier sum. Originally, the Red Knights set themselves a target of £1 billion — 50 super-rich Reds chipping in £15 million each, with the rest coming from less well-off fans, or borrowed and the loan repaid by cash from the supporters at a later date.

They were on their way to reaching that goal, but always there was the suspicion it would not be anything like enough.

Liverpool changes all that. United have kept Rooney. Now the Glazers should quit with honour. Who would have thought it: Liverpool may have done United an enormous favour.