Tom Hicks and George Gillett are, it seems, back on speaking terms. This is not good news for Liverpool FC. It means the crusade to turn the club into an American sitcom is probably back on track again. Hicks and Gillett are the Lemmon and Matthau of Premier League owners.

They insist -- of course -- that they have Liverpool's best interests at heart, but that insistence loses something fundamental in delivery. It feels like it should come with the accessory of canned laughter.

You see, one specialises in junk bonds, the other in leveraged buy-outs. So you can understand the queasiness of supporters when Hicks invites Sky Sports over to his home in Texas and meets them in a Liverpool fleece. It's like seeing Michael O'Leary flouncing about in a mantilla.

Hicks and Gillett reek of opportunism. They've owned the club for 16 months now and, apart from the clumsy humiliation of Rafa Benitez with that courting of Jurgen Klinsmann and their own childish, spiteful feud, it's a little hard to decipher anything they've actually achieved in that time.

They borrowed so heavily to buy Liverpool, a suspicion lurks that business at Anfield is now conducted as if every new day dawns as October 24, 1929.

Plans for the new stadium have already been down-sized and, by all appearances, suspended. Liverpool's only concrete moves in the transfer market have been for two full-backs, a Swiss who sat on the bench for the duration of his country's mediocre involvement in Euro 2008 and an Italian who didn't even make the Azzurri's squad.

Hicks has declared the commercial shortcomings of Chief Executive, Rick Parry, "a disaster".

And go figure this. Under Benitez, Liverpool have harvested millions from the Champions' League, yet he now finds himself reduced to counting coins, like the hard-pressed manager of a curio stall.

It's not just Chelsea, Manchester United and Arsenal who go shopping on better streets. It's Newcastle and Tottenham, Everton and Manchester City.

John Arne Riise's sale to Roma will probably facilitate the eventual purchase of Andrea Dossena from Udinese. And if Xabi Alonso goes to Juventus, Benitez might just bow to Aston Villa's exorbitant pricing of Gareth Barry.

After that? The chat boards reflect the turmoil.

At worst, Liverpool are thought desperate to trim their wage-bill (Finnan, Pennant, Benayoun, Voronin, Itandje, Leto etc.) At best, they have deals already agreed for the arrival of David Villa, David Silva and David Bentley (presumably in anticipation of a pending European ruling that at least a third of every professional team must answer to the same Christian name).

The disparity speaks of a bewildered following. Liverpool supporters have no way of knowing just what market they are in right now. So they look to Rafa's body language, desperate to identify the subtleties that distinguish a sanguine general from a resigned one.

Rebuffed

There are some consolations, mind.

Chelsea have, reputedly, been flashing green-backs in the direction of Kaka, Fernando Torres and Frank Ribery only to, remarkably, find themselves rebuffed by all three. And Cristiano Ronaldo seems intent on swapping Manchester for Madrid.

But, then, you think of Alex Ferguson getting his hands on another £70m and it's like hearing that the guy from pest control has sorted out your wasp problem, but can do nothing about the bats.

The worst thing about Gillett and Hicks is that they have managed to feed the depiction of Dubai International Capital as some kind of noble humanitarian agency set upon a course of human kindness. They have turned Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum into a modern-day Gandhi.

The idea of DIC buying Liverpool is, essentially, attractive because that of the Americans retaining ownership remains so repugnant.

Gillett was, reputedly, willing to sell his 50pc share for a £75m profit this year, but Hicks blocked the deal. Why? He claims to have wonderful plans for the club. But, then, he claimed the cement mixers would be spinning in Stanley Park by now too.

The cynical view is that the Americans, albeit separately, are playing a game of bluff here. That, ultimately, their interest in Liverpool FC has never extended beyond the business of profit.

Certainly, you look at Hicks, at his Liverpool fleece, his Liverpool mug, his eldest son holding up a scarf and pretending to sing 'You'll Never Walk Alone' (the night Chelsea visited Anfield in the Champions' League) and it looks about as natural as Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen espousing a devotion to Kilkenny hurling.

The word this week is that "communication" between the Hicks and Gillett families has "improved significantly". This -- we are told -- has yet to extend to an actual conversation between Tom and George themselves.

Meanwhile, pre-season begins to loom and the admirable Benitez must set about formulating plans in an environment that makes the political landscape in Zimbabwe look stable. For now, his expression remains implacable.

The prayer must be that he knows something the supporters don't. That deals have been done and commitments made that speak of genuine ambition.

Otherwise, the sitcom prepares to subsume the football club. And great men spin violently in their graves.

*** For the record, this column did NOT argue that hurling management was no place for old men last week. Actually, we argued to the contrary but the message got lost. We are guilty of many sins in this neck of the woods, but ageism is not among them.

- Vincent Hogan