Reviled ex-Liverpool owner Tom Hicks claims he felt ‘betrayed’ by the club’s fans.
Hicks and business partner George Gillett oversaw a debt-ridden tenure at Anfield between 2007 and 2010 that almost saw the club enter administration.
The Texan also angered Reds supporters during that spell by confessing to sounding out Jurgen Klinsmann as a potential replacement for Rafael Benitez.
Protests against Hicks and Gillett’s chronic mismanagement became a regular fixture during match days as the club’s financial crisis continued to worsen.
Reflecting on his time at Liverpool in a wide-ranging interview with Sky Sports, Hicks believes that he was double-crossed by sections of the Anfield faithful.
He said: “I was very impressed with the Liverpool fans. They are the most loyal, rabid fans there is. It was great the first six months.
“We arrived at the club in March and went to the Champions League final in May, and I remember walking around the track before the game started with my son Tommy and the fans were yelling all these wonderful things at us, adulation.
“But of course a year later the same fans were calling for my head, they changed fast.
“I think the social media aspect became so vocal and visible and I think that was highly organised by people I thought were working for me – in hindsight they were trying to sabotage the ownership.
“I’m not mad at the fans, I’m mad at those people who organised the social media. I felt betrayed.”
Hicks also alleges the decision to approach Klinsmann was prompted by a belief that Benitez would leave Liverpool in order to take the reins at Real Madrid.
Three years later the American owner signed off on Benitez’s sacking at the end of the 2009/10 season, having missed out on Champions League qualification.
“We were worried that we were going to lose Rafa,” claims Hicks.
“We had intelligence that he was going to move to Real Madrid and we had a chance to talk to Jurgen as a potential candidate so we had a meeting with the guy.
“Next thing I know it’s leaked out to the press and the fans leapt to the defence of poor Rafa – also they hated the Americans and all of a sudden the adulation I felt in Athens was totally replaced by the angry feelings everybody had a few months later.
“I think the way our whole relationship with Rafa ended could’ve been avoided or done very differently.
“I got along with Rafa just fine, I think it was really between [chief executive] Christian Purslow and Rafa in the end, they ended up getting crossed wires.”