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[mjs]

Best position is central midfield and has a well-rounded game.

Has always looked a promising player for the reserves and England U19s. However, this season, he's been playing on the right wing (for the reserves), which imo has restricted his progress. He either needs a loan move or first team action to develop.

I fear that at his age and his continued exclusion from the first team squad suggests that he may not make it at Ewood.

[CAPT KAYOS]

I'm sure that every poster will still be upset by the refereeing decision that robbed us of 2 more points yesterday.

What I'm a bit surprised about is that people have not concentrated more on the quality of our display.

We had 4 shots on target-they had 15.

We had 4 shots off target-they had 9.

We had 4 corners-they had 14.

I could symphasise with Souness being reluctant to play Gray, who has brought a great deal of stability to the defense and did a lot of covering for Amoruso last year, but who has struggled against specialist wingers.I'm just not convinced that Matteo, with lack of his pace,is the answer.

In the second half, when the game got stretched, we very rarely broke with pace. I'm not convinced that Tugay and Ferguson can play effectively together. Tugay needs to play behind the strikers, I'm not sure of Ferguson's best position. I personally think there is a big question mark about what I guess is our record signing, but maybe he will come good by October.as Souness said, after 12 games.

As I said, on the Emerton posting, despite playing hist best home game since he joined us ,I still think there is also a huge question about whether he will make it at Premiership level.

Dickov scored an excellent poacher's goal and worked hard. But he's no Andy Cole and Stead, who is looking a little lost this year, needs a partner who can replicate Cole's contribution from last year.

So lady luck came into it again and intervened on our opponent's behalf.

However, I can't remember a meaningful save that Howard had to make, nor did I see the kind of quality that is going to get us away from the bottom.

Beat me to it 92er and is something I find very worrying.

This game was approached with the feeling we where meeting a MU team that was at its weakest it has been for a while with us having possibly our strongest line up (barring Gray).

I am not really for stats and I am also one of those that will say its not how much or how long you have the ball but what you do it that counts - however it leads me to the question of even with our arguably strongest team on Saturday is nobody else in the least, still slightly worried about how we were still picked off at liberty and how easy they cut through us? We could have lost the game by a significant margin if it wasn't for Super Brad and IMO we are still missing 'a spark' of creativity out on the pitch as we still appear laborious in our efforts to attack.

Yes we showed more determination and looked 100% better organised , probably because we played 442 but unless we can continue with this I can still see major problems.

As for Yorke, how anybody can try to defend what he did on Saturday is unbelievable - this guy is a waste of space - there is a big difference between chasing lost causes and putting in effort - and I know what I and many others saw from the 'Caribbean Slug'.

Cannot really add anything more about the officials, but I genuinely thought the ref was bad for both sides with us losing out more.

Lets just hope, the determination shown on Saturday is carried over to the restof the games and the confidence and concentration is built upon that allows us to get the team into routine of organisation and stability.

[Hughesy]

1st game iv seen this season was on saturday and im sorry but Yorke has not changed from last season. He was useless

[American]

Good point 92er and Capt.

Remember however, when we beat Arsenal a couple years back, they had the same dominance against us (even better, I remember something about 21 saves or so for Brad, or 21 shots), but no one was complaining about our performance then. Perhaps it was because the ref didn't give them a dodgy equalizer at the end?

[speeeeeeedie]

Having seen the match and finally watching the US equivalent of MoTD I have to say that we were definitely not the only team to be on the wrong end of very bad refereeing decisions last weekend that cost teams points. Everyone has had a good gripe about the Saha handball and the dubious sending off of Amourso, so I won't voice my opinion on that, but I will offer up some other instances last weekend.

Arsenal - Norwich. Huckerby went down like he'd been shot, the replay showed there was no contact, but the young defender Hoyte didn't think and looking at it in full speed was a pen. However, how Lauren stayed on the pitch is beyond me. He'd already been booked and then decided to put in a very late, very dangerous tackle right in front of the ref in the centre circle. The offical didn't blink. Favouritism?

Villa- Newcastle. This one didn't fall in line with the "big clubs always win" rule. Bernard was clearly fouled in the build up to Villa's second. But the big one is how does Sorensen stay on the pitch? The ref acknowledged that he handled it by awarding a free kick and booking him, but why not a sending off? It cost poor old Bobby his job.

Bolton - Liverpool. Garcia's equalizer. Never offside.

So folks, judging from these I would like to console everoyne that there is no conspiracy against Rovers, but I'm not curtailing the fact that ref's do give more leniency to the "big clubs" and it's here to stay.

I won't totally blame referees though, regarding their decisions. The game is getting faster with players able to do far more than previous generations. Ref's have a split second to make a decision and stick to it. Couple that with the saturation of play acting, diving and general faking that has become an integral part of the English game, and you have a recipe for disaster. Feigning works, so players will do it until mandates are passed down saying that any acting will be dealt with strictly it will carry on. It's not in the British psyche to do it, but if our clubs and the national team are to be successful we have to learn to cry like babies and fall over every time someone breathes on us as the rest of the world has a 15 year head start on us.

As for our formation/tactics, we did well, but need Amoruso playing. For all his misgivings he's a tremenbous talisman who plays with his heart on his sleeve. He needs a good run to show everyone.

[Ianrally]

Ronaldo - until today I liked him. I'd only seen him on the telly but you had to respect and enjoy his skills. I now realise he's a cheat. All that talent and he has to cheat? I hope he's a disaster from now on - cheats get what they deserve.

I feel exactly the same Paul. I was appalled by Ronaldo's blatant dives and constant whining to the referee. His theatrical tumble in the box after running into Amoruso was so bad it was actually funny--yet I can't believe he didn't go in the book for that. For a kid with so much skill, he clearly has a lot to learn about the game of football.

Cannot stand this out and out cheating by diving at every available opportunity. I thought the FA had issued a directive that diving should be a cautionable offence and the perpetrator should be immediately given a yellow card.

[Nayef]

Flew back from Nice on sunday to get a text with the result:

Blackburn 1 ManU 1

Great I thought, a point against them is always good.

then I saw what happened.

I do believe the phrase rhymes with "clucking bell"...

COME ON ROVERS!! BASH THOSE MAGPIES TO A PULP. NEVER GIVE IN!!

We're in danger of becoming a team that likes to sit back on a 1-0 lead and soak up the pressure when really we should take confidence from that lead and go for the throat. Had we scored again, it would probably have been over. ManU did have 3 or 4 hits of the woodwork and Rovers rode their luck but a 2-0 lead would have been welcome at that stage.

Am actually very encouraged by our start to this season.

Rovers were much the better team at Soton and should have WON that one. The ref conspired against us in that game as well. The penalty NEVER was one, our attitude was spot on and we took the game to them over the whole match. This actually spurred them into a battle. The very least we deserved was a 2-2 draw, even this would have been unjust.

At Highbury the Soton match confidence carried through and we really troubled Arsenal for 45 minutes. The only difference is that we didn't score, luck against us once again. The Gunners back 4 were broken down on more than 5 occasions. To be fair we should have been 2-0 up at the 30 mins marker, this would have been a fair reflection.

In the 2nd half they went mad and were ruthless, they completely swept us aside, and it could have been a massacre.

I have been really impressed with the fight & attitude, we need a finisher (some pace) to compliment Stead. Dickov is doing what he did for leicester and man city......a terrier in the mid of the opposing defence.

Better luck WILL follow.

Come on rovers!!!!