This was always on the cards when Manchester finally woke up to locost.
The giant down the road has the muscle to dictate favourable terms to Liverpool's only two major tenants, where does Liverpool go ?
The network is contracting so you cannot grow revenue organically , at least not to a meaningful level. You cannot increase fees as your customers will simply walk away.
If you have large costs the only thing you can do is try to lower these by extension
or
maximising car parking fees, retail etc, difficult in a market which has shrank so dramatically.