Former Liverpool chief exec Christian Purslow believes Fenway Sports Group are now successfully managing the club.

Speaking to the Liverpool Echo, Purslow offered his opinion on the position the club finds itself in now, and whether FSG could do more to ensure the club is competitive at the highest level.

He said: “I think the club is in a very stable and improved position. It is financially managed in an extremely skilful, professional and responsible way – and those are words that are near and dear to me as a business person.

“It is prudently managed, and never again could I imagine - certainly under this ownership group – the kind of financial irresponsibility that characterised the previous period.

“That's important, because it gives you a platform. But you can't have everything in life, and when you're up against rivals who have funding models that are limitless, as City do, and in United a competitor that haven't had some of these distractions and have been able to in the last 15 years gain a huge commercial advantage. Those are very deep-pocketed competitors whose ability to pay wages and fund transfers is higher than Liverpool's is today.

“I think Liverpool are in rude financial health, and so that would suggest that their par is somewhere between third, fourth and fifth."