• Liverpool manager defends taking off Torres at Birmingham • Roy Hodgson may be forced into sending out weakened team

Liverpool's unpopular owners George Gillett and Tom Hicks look to be on their way out of Liverpool after Barclays backed a £300m refinancing deal that could lead to the sale of the club.

The bank is to take over from the Anfield club's present lenders, place a sizeable transfer fund at Rafael Benítez's disposal and appoint Martin Broughton of British Airways as chairman.

Liverpool have outstanding loans of £237m and its lenders, Royal Bank of Scotland and Wachovia, an American bank, have demanded £100m by July.

Broughton, whose job will be to find a new owner, is the chairman of British Airways and a former head of BAT, the tobacco giants, and the British Horseracing Authority.

Hicks and Gillett bought Liverpool from the Moores family for £219m three years ago. They have been taking to several potential investors, including an American private equity fund, Rhone Group, who offered to buy a 40% stake for £116m.

Whether Benítez will be there to work with the new regime is open to doubt, with Juventus reportedly planning to poach Fernando Torres and Javier Mascherano in order to lure the manager to Italy.

Benítez yesterday attacked armchair critics who "don't have a clue" about tactics but still piled into the row over last Sunday's controversial substitution of Torres. The Liverpool manager made the surprising decision to take off his top scorer with 25 minutes left at Birmingham, as Liverpool struggled to break the deadlock at 1-1.

That proved to be the final score, leaving Benítez's "guarantee" of a top-four finish in the Premier League looking about as secure as a politician's promise at election time. They trail fourth-placed Manchester City by four points and Tottenham by three, despite having played a game more than both.

But with Torres troubled by a sore knee and weary after a draining European tie at Benfica, Benítez is adamant he made the right decision, despite the result. "I have been listening to many things," the Liverpool manager said ahead of today's vital match with Fulham. "People don't have a clue when they talk about the substitution, or say that he cannot be tired.

"Some people say he cannot be tired because he didn't play too many games. That doesn't matter. We played 60 minutes with 10 men against a very good Benfica team and we had to work very hard. We had Mascherano, [Daniel] Agger and Torres really tired and you have to manage them.

"We wanted to start the Birmingham game with Torres because he can make the difference, but as soon as we could see he was not making the difference, we needed fresh legs. David Ngog made the difference – we then had six chances in 30 minutes."

Torres put his Birmingham frustrations behind him on Thursday to score twice in Liverpool's stunning 4-1 win in the second leg of their Europa League quarter-final against Benfica.

Victory in the semi-final could set up a Europa League final against Fulham, visitors to Anfield in the league this afternoon.

Benítez will know – if not admit –that defeat this afternoon could make the final Champions League spot for next season almost unreachable. Mid-table Fulham have rather less to play for and their manager, Roy Hodgson, says he will be forced to rest players suffering from campaign fatigue (today's outing is their 55th this season) and injury.

West Ham, who are in a relegation battle, have already complained to the Premier League after Hodgson rested key players for the trip to Hull a fortnight ago, which Fulham lost 2-0.