More than 5,000 Liverpool fans marched in protest against the club's owners ahead of the team's 2-0 win over Premier League rivals Manchester United.

The march attracted around 1,000 more fans than a similar event last year. That drew some 4,000 fans, and the club's struggles on the pitch - it had lost its last four games before beating United - led to a significant increase in numbers, though without reaching the estimate of 10,000 predicted by one British newspaper last week.

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"Tom Hicks and George Gillett say a lot of things. The problem with them is that they fail to act upon that," said James McKenna, the protest's organiser, to the BBC. "When they first took over the football club they promised no debt on the club. We've since been put into a lot of debt.

"They promised they'd back the manager and time and time again they've failed to do so. And they promised a new stadium and if you go and look in Stanley Park we are no nearer to a new stadium now than we were when they first took over the football club."

Meanwhile, club managing director Christian Purslow told Radio 5 Live: "There has been a huge amount of interest in the club from some extremely wealthy and expert investors but it will take three to six months to pull that together. It means there will be new investment into the football club. Mr Hicks and Mr Gillett have no plans to sell their shares."