Tom Hicks and George Gillett. Two names which featured in the newspapers far more than they should have done last season. The Liverpool co-owners were at each other’s throats for most of last season’s campaign, causing the club a great deal of embarrassment, not to mention Rafael Benitez’s future looking increasingly uncertain.

However, a combination of fan protest and commons sense appears to have won the day at Anfield, and the BBC report that the American pair have patched things up ahead of the new campaign. This has surely got to be welcome news for all concerned, but will the peace pact between the duo be short-lived?

Gillett had previously described his partnership with Hicks as “unworkable”.

But he told Canadian radio station Fan590: “It’s fair to say communication between the Hicks’s and the Gilletts has been substantially improved.”

Gillett said: “Time is a healer and there were things that had happened previously. It took a while for both of us to realise that we weren’t communicating very well and the huge responsibility we have to the fans to do the right thing for the club.”

Is this evidence of the passion and loyalty coming from Liverpool fans? You might imagine that the future could have been a lot different if the supporters hadn’t voiced their opinions so vehemently. Nevertheless fans of the Reds must be delighted that there is calm after the storm.