Liverpool F.C. co-owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett have dropped the restraining order that prevented the the club's board members from pushing through with the 300 million pound sale of the club to New England Sports Ventures (NESV).

Although further litigation may follow from the club's now previous owners, Hicks and Gillett (who have vowed to pursue a claim for 1.6 billion dollars in damages) have now been expelled from Anfield and their rein is over.

Liverpool manager Roy Hodgson is elated by the news. "It is a very positive situation and a very good day for the club - a day everyone at the club will welcome and the new owners will welcome," Hodgson told the press on Friday. "It is a relief. It has been a very difficult couple of weeks."

"For this long drawn-out court battle to take place and Liverpool's name to be on the television screens and in the newspapers every day for anything other than positive reasons has been a bad time.

"We've had to live through that bad time but hopefully now, if NESV are going to take over, that would be very good news for us going into the important match at the weekend.

"I am hoping the new owners coming in will stabilise the situation and give us a chance to concentrate on the football and, most importantly of all, will wipe out debts. That will mean in future we can invest in players in a different way to what has happened in the last transfer window when money was in short supply and we weren't even certain there would be any money to spend or even if the club would be there.

"The mere fact the club will be taken over and the debts wiped off immediately puts us into a different financial position to the one we have been in."

Meanwhile, Hodgson expects to be retained as manager by the new owners.

"There hasn't been any talk about my position at the club," Hodgson said. "He called me and his message was that he was hoping the deal would go through, he was very much looking forward to becoming the new owner and he was looking forward to working with me and the people who were here but we didn't talk about investment."