At the end of the day, as they say in football, or of QCs in the wood-panelled courts of The Strand picking over a football club's guts: what have we learned?

Well, that poor Tom Hicks and George Gillett have been much misunderstood. They are not, their barrister, Paul Girolami QC, insisted, "trying to throw a spanner in the works" of Liverpool's sale to New England Sports Ventures. That is the deal agreed by the board, chaired by Martin Broughton, last Tuesday, which might finally pay off the £200m Hicks and Gillett borrowed from Royal Bank of Scotland to buy the club in the first place, then loaded on the club to repay.



Hicks and Gillett may be holding it up with all the legal armoury corporate sluggers can pay for but, they say, it is all for the good of the club. The bids from Peter Lim, the Singapore businessman who owns a chain of Manchester United cafes in south-east Asia, and Mill Financial, the hedge fund which has apparently repossessed Gillett's shares because he defaulted on a loan, might offer more money to the club, Hicks and Gillett say, not to them.

They do not want to stay in control or resist a sale of the club, Girolami said, but they believe the "English directors" – Broughton, the managing director, Christian Purslow, and the commercial director, Ian Ayre – ganged up on them. Hicks and Gillett's barrister said the "English directors" formed "a sub‑committee", calling it the "home team", and excluded the Americans from the decision‑making.

Hicks and Gillett are arguing that the "English directors" then decided on NESV, the owners of the Boston Red Sox, turning down the chance to wring a higher offer from Lim. "The English directors have gone forward with the NESV bid without properly considering alternatives when those alternatives at least appear to give better prospects," Girolami said.

He never quite explained why the English directors, one of whom, Purslow, is a confirmed Liverpool fan, would do that. But it was a selfless argument; the better prospects appear to be only for the club. Lim's statement, released with cute timing yesterday, held out a populist £40m to invest in players and £280m to pay off all the club's debts but nothing for Hicks and Gillett. Likewise Mill was apparently prepared to throw a morsel to what it perhaps imagines to be a still impressionable Liverpool crowd – £100m to "start" a new stadium – but no pay-off was mentioned, still, for Hicks and Gillett. However, Mill arrived too late, the board had done its deal with NESV, which it will complete, if the owners drop their opposition or are defeated in court.

Hicks and Gillett did admit they were in breach of their contract with Royal Bank of Scotland, agreed in April when they refinanced their original loan, that Broughton would have the sole right to appoint and remove directors. So when, just before last Tuesday's board meeting, they purported to sack Purslow and Ayre by fax and replace them with Hicks's son Mack and Mack's assistant, they admit they breached their agreement. They argued it was only because the English directors had been excluding them from discussions and not considering the other potential offers, which would have been better for the club.

If that was Hicks's and Gillett's motivation and concern, not thrashing around to salvage some money for themselves, as we have been assuming, their actions last Tuesday seem a little odd. Why not tell RBS that NESV's offer was too low? Why not go ahead with the board meeting, have a civilised discussion, and tell Broughton firmly he should be shaking a little more out of Lim or getting something to "start" the new stadium? Then take legal action, if the directors did not comply.

Why, instead, attempt to ambush the meeting, by sacking two directors without prior notice and in acknowledged breach of their contract with RBS, and manufacture a majority on the board with a move so crude and amateurish-looking as installing Hicks's son?

That question was not asked or answered yesterday but Liverpool's QC's account was true to what Broughton emphasised during his landmark public onslaught against Hicks and Gillett last week. The club was properly marketed, he said. Liverpool FC was on very public sale for months, as was reported globally.

Lord Grabiner QC said the board had spoken to 130 parties by last Tuesday, the deadline it set because it was only 10 days before RBS could call its loans in and put Hicks's and Gillett's holding company into administration with the loss of nine points. Lim's and NESV's were the only two on the table and although Lim is "credible", the board decided NESV's bid was marginally better, because it was evidently keen, was meeting some of the £40m fees RBS had piled up and has a solid track record of running the Red Sox.

"It was a thorough and well thought-through process," Grabiner said, rejecting the accusation from Hicks and Gillett, still unexplained, that the "English directors" did not want the best bid for Liverpool.

Beyond all this painful detail, dredged for five and a half hours before the word "football" was mentioned, was what we learned more broadly. Three and a half years since Hicks and Gillett strode into Anfield pledging to take a great, decently-run club to the very top, Liverpool are where Portsmouth, Crystal Palace, Notts County, Southend, Cardiff, Sheffield Wednesday, Plymouth, Stockport, Rochdale and Accrington have been recently: in the high court, pleading for survival, during English football's greatest boom.

Liverpool are different from all those who faced winding-up petitions: the club was nowhere near crisis when Hicks and Gillett rode in. The previous season Liverpool finished third in the league and won the FA Cup, then the team Hicks and Gillett inherited reached the 2007 Champions League final. That made the Americans feel that owning an English Premier League club was going to be a whole lot of fun.

They promised a spade in the park for the new stadium and not to make their borrowings the club's responsibility, pledges they broke. They promised theirs was "a multi-generational commitment", their families involved for decades. And they financed that commitment with £185m from RBS – repayable in 12 months.

Yesterday the bones of what they have reduced Liverpool to were picked over in court, the pair protesting their right to breach another undertaking. Tomorrow it will all begin again, this case, to decide whether Broughton and the "English directors" have the right to restore Liverpool close to where they would have been, had Hicks and Gillett never walked into Anfield with their short-term loan, planning to make money for themselves, while promising the earth.