Today's Banter: Owners 'rift' rubbished, A return to England for Cissé?, Riise to stay, & Rush praises Rafa's tactics

Club Chief Executive Rick Parry has stated that the rift between Tom Hicks and George Gillett is totally fabricated. The 52-year-old revealed that he has recently spent time with both owners and drew no such conclusions of a breach in their partnership. Even if there was, I sincerely doubt the papers would know about it before something major occurred. Parry added that Gillett and Hicks are still on the same page concerning the future of the club and are working on a refinancing package to be completed in the next 30 days.

Former LFC striker Djibril Cissé may be on his way back to the Premiership. The 26-year-old French international has fallen out of favor with his current club, Marseille, and is looking to go elsewhere. It is no surprise that 'Money Bags' Shinawatra at Man City and Eggert 'Big Paper' Magnússon of West Ham are the two being linked to him. Cissé is married to an English woman and still owns a home in Cheshire.

John Arne Riise has rubbished claims that he'll be joining fellow Norwegian John Carew at Aston Villa in January. The recently turned 27-year-old seems very pragmatic about his current dip in form and is looking to improve. Riise has had glimpses of brilliance, but they've been far and few between. He was simply dazzling in the preseason, but at the very least, wholly inconsistent since. Maybe he can get some pointers from Hyypia about how to find his top self once again. I'd rather he stick around, but if he's going to continue to be a detriment, I can't see any reason to keep him aboard.

Finally, Ian Rush has praised Rafa for the tactics he employed in the Fulham match, especially bringing on Torres at just the right time. One of the things that he states in that article that I agree with is that he doesn't believe Rafa wanted to keep the same line-up as the Besitkas match. I really think Rafa did so as a message to his players that he doesn't always rotate on the basis of who's fresh or for tactical reasons. I think he wanted to let them know if they perform well, they'll get more playing chances, a notion some don't think Rafa believes in. Cheers.