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Tom Hicks has rejected calls for him and co-owner George Gillett to sell Liverpool quickly – saying they will hold out for the right price.

Former chairman David Moores spoke earlier this week of his regret at selling the club to the Americans and urged the duo – who are deeply unpopular with Liverpool’s fans – to “stand aside with dignity”.

Hicks said he was “disappointed” by Moores’ comments and claimed that Liverpool are “much better off than three years ago”.

He told Sky Sports News: “I’m disappointed [with Moores] because I think we’ve done everything we can to improve the club in so many ways from the way it had been run before.

“We have a great management team led by Christian Purslow [the managing director], the commercial director Ian Ayre has done a great job and we have a strong finance director in Philip Nash.

“We’ve grown our sponsorships from £40m annually under the last years of Moores’ ownership and this year we’ll be doing close to £100m. These are resources for the club to use, to support the wage bill and to be competitive.

“Since Moores’ ownership in the last three years, with what we will spend this summer we will have more than doubled both the gross and net transfer spending on players.”

Hicks continued: “We’ve tried to make Liverpool as professional a club as possible. The new stadium is fully designed now and the global financing markets are back, so with the change of ownership coming we will be able to have a new stadium built and we have a great board.

“We will sell the club. We are not going to sell it to the wrong group and we’re not going to sell it for the wrong price. We are going to take our time, do it in a very thoughtful way and try to find the right steward to own Liverpool FC. We’re hoping to sell before the end of the calendar year and we don’t anticipate it will be done before the beginning of next season.

“I have said £600-£800m is not an unrealistic value range, but the market is the market and we’ll see. We are more concerned about finding the right owner – someone who can make the investment, get the stadium built and help Liverpool be the best possible football club in the world.”