As thousands of Liverpool fans mobilised for a protest march around Anfield on Saturday, George Gillett Jr, one of the club’s owners, was launching a belated and fairly calamitous charm offensive, instigating a meeting with supporters and expressing surprise upon learning of the ill feeling towards him and Tom Hicks, his estranged business partner.

Members of the Spirit of Shankly (SOS) group, which was formed in January as a protest against the club’s American owners, were contacted last week to inform them that Gillett wished to meet them while on a rare visit to Merseyside. The meeting took place on Saturday morning, before kick-off against Manchester United and just before an SOS demonstration against the Americans’ ownership. Gillett had come to believe that the supporters’ group was being directed in the protest by Amanda Staveley, the head of the Dubai bid to buy Liverpool, a notion that was quickly shot down.

Gillett admitted that communication between himself, Hicks, Rick Parry, the chief executive, Ian Ayre, the commercial manager, and Rafael BenÍtez, the manager, could have been better. The American claimed that the club is in a healthy financial state and its situation is no worse than other Premier League clubs. When questioned why he and Hicks had, contrary to an earlier pledge, taken the club into debt with a £350 million refinancing package in January and had failed to deliver the funds to build a new stadium, Gillett blamed the global credit crunch.

The union delegation outlined their objections to the club’s ownership and reiterated their desire for Gillett and Hicks to end their involvement with Liverpool. These sentiments were underlined during the protest, when upwards of 3,500 fans marched to the stadium chanting “get out of our club”.