Condolences to the family and friends, a shocking and horrific tragedy where lessons need to be learned. I have moved back to the uk after living abroad for the best part of 10 years, the home games ive been to since my return have been fun, professional and a safe environment to take the family. The only away game ive attended so far was at Fulham, and there was an element of idiocy at the back of the stand there that made for a rather nervous feeling as i sat with my sons. In fact at the end of the game i have a recollection of stewards and police rushing to the back of the stand at the end of the game, which with what others have posted tells me we have an element within our support that should not be there, get them out of football for good.

just copying in what i said in the nancy post on the subject of lucas as its probably more relevant here, also just a little observation of someone i have no respect for in football at all. paste - MH surelymade Lucas captain to show what the club thinks of him and to give him more responsibility and try and entice him to stay by showing a LOT of faith in him, this unfortunately backfired, perhaps when people started booing and bad mouthing him..... perhaps it could be said because of those people booing him he is even more determined to leave and play for a club where he may be more valued and has a greater chance to achieve something even if its via the bench.... Personally i think hes conducted himself fairly well, he stated his desire to leave quite a while ago and has done well in the games ive seen since, unlike the most pathetic captain i have ever seen at any club who tossed his dummy out the pram, refusing to play and returning to the part time league at the drop of a hat for those "big" games against inverness cally, his actions were FAR worse than Lucas who at least is still fighting for us, sure he might have a bad day at the office, but not that many on the pitch in the blue + white have had very good days this season...

Surely MH made him captain to show what the club thinks of him and to give him more responsibility and try and entice him to stay by showing a LOT of faith in him, this unfortunately backfired, perhaps when people started booing and bad mouthing him..... perhaps it could be said because of those people booing him he is even more determined to leave and play for a club where he may be more valued....just my thought on a thursday afternoon.

On the subject of neil i have to say personally when i have handed my notice in to a current employer i have from that moment onwards completely and utterly switched off with no interest in my role there and cant wait to leave and start my new job. Lucas has in the main from what ive seen, been a damn site more professional in the period since he first refused his contract renewal and stated his intention to move on than i and many others i know have been when in similar situations, and in my situations is was a maximum two months notice period not 6 months! hes been a good player for us, but all things come to an end at least he hasnt shirked his duties, sat back and collected his wages from the bench and if he scores a few more before he leaves ill be delighted for him and support him in the process. Once hes gone and is comitting fouls against us ill be the first shouting red, red, red, red

"The match was poor because the howling blustery wind ensured that conditions were desperately difficult. Sat in the stands most of us were protected but on the pitch a wind of that nature makes controlling and anticipating the ball desperately difficult." Call me mad, bad and dangerous to know, I accept that conditions may not have been ideal, the pitch looked poor and it looked pretty windy, but if it was that windy why for the first 45 were we lumping high long balls forward for the wind to carry, surely short passing to feet would have been a better option to restrict the winds effect?

Tony cascarino was in the studio for eurosport last night who played at nancy, he was saying kim has blistering pace to burn but cannot finish, scored 1 all last season in 31 games if my sleep addled memory was correct.

My player ratings and general comments after sitting up till 2am to watch this..... a damn good cure for insomnia tho! Awful game, we didn’t get going at all till 60th minute, they looked ok, like a mid table prem side at there best they were very quick up front which caused problems all night for our slow coaches. The ref helped our cause no end, a prem ref could have given them 2 or 3 pens, weve had less dodgy ones against us than several that weren’t given last night. Hilarious part was they had there 3rd choice keeper playing according to eurosport in his first ever professional game……. So heres a footie manager question for you, the commentators said he looked VERY nervous in the warm up so would you 1 attack him with men close on set pieces and shots flying in from everywhere or 2 have one shot in 65 minutes to give him a nice gentle start to his professional career, ill let you guess which rovers did. We couldn’t string more than three passes together without giving it away, off the park or HOOFED up the pitch, was shambolic. Basically we looked a very average championship side that got some dodgy decisions our way for once and got em with a sucker punch with the second last kick of the game. There manager was going MENTAL and refused to shake Hughes hand… Bring on benfica away please cos I DEFO want to go to that or braga as there only a few hours away. Brad – kept us in it, imo was rovers mom Mcevely – pretty average squad player, couldn’t cope with the speed of there attack and his forward distribution was poor, made a couple of good challenges and blocks, gave away a lot of fouls. Todd – ok at the back defending, slaughtered for pace, forward distribution was long ball or nothing, long ball the whole time he was on the pitch, or had the misfortune to pass to axe who would give it straight back or loose it. –replaced by Nolan Ooijer – ok, I don’t remember him doing much at all of anything….. from the rest of his team mates performance this may be a good thing?? Neill – gave away some VERY bad fouls, could have had a pen or 2 against him, did nothing but long ball going forward for first 65mins usually to no one, off the pitch or the opposition. Forward distribution was AWFUL was moved to centre def when todd went off then started doing some really dodgy cruyff turns in the box maybe barca scouts turned up at half time… well taken goal tho. Nolan – no idea who he was, looked ok ish, some nice touches, not many long balls thank god. Good experience for him. Peter – pretty average, pinned back by there right back criten struggled to make any impact at all, very few crosses, not much penetration and no possession, kinda sums rovers up all night actually, taken off for mgp. (Criten red dwarf? was one of there two best players who should have been mom, great defending, great attacking and available for 2 million euros apparently…..good replacement for neil methinks) Lily sorry sav – normal sav, runs like a girl, didn’t really get his passing going did ok ish. Axe – THE WORST midfielder at rovers ive seen in the last 10 years, even georgios donis had better touch and final ball! I know hes south African who are better at rugby than football, but his tackles belong on the rugby pitch and someone tell him in this game you can pass forward!!! His first touch is non existent, his passing is complete rubbish, hes about 40 seconds later than everyone else to the ball, about 4 minutes late when he tackles, gives away far to many free kicks and gets far to many cards, my 8yr old is a better footballer than this guy, how he is worth a new contract i do not know, he must have some embarrassing polaroids and be black mailing someone... Bentley – didn’t even touch the ball till 30 minutes and I mean didn’t touch it. Not particularly his fault, guys behind were HOOFING it up the park for the youngsters to chase leaving him in no mans land. Came into it more in second half when mh must have reminded neil that there was a guy in front he could pass on the floor to and did have a few good efforts. MGP – came on like the return of pele, did very little after that, one good attempt and managed to distract a few players in the build up to neills goal by rolling around in there box. Gallacher – spent on all night chasing long balls from the back like a headless chicken, must have done wonders for his confidence NOT. Taken off for benni. Benni – came on, did nothing but moan at Derbyshire for getting in his way, seemed more worried about derbyshires presence than doing anything else. Derbyshire – spent most of his night chasing lost long ball causes passed into the middle of nowhere or straight to the opposition. Had two good chances, looked ok, but again a drain on the confidence of a youngster who had scored 8 in 8 in the reserves.

Personally i think we had a pretty normal transfer day, bringing in a bit more strength here and there, replacing leavers with better (with the possible exception of bellamy) however the problem we face is that other teams have made much stronger signings than we have which i think will make life difficult for us over the course of the season.

another little update from eufas website with some interesting reading on the new chap. reading between the lines we got him because of his injuries and to see if he can recover, if he does play well i hope any future transfer has already been agreed just in case he does come good and we get priced out of any potential deal... from uefa website - Date of birth: 06.03.1977 Country: Congo Position: Forward Profile Pace, strength and the ability to finish with his head and both feet helped Shabani Nonda establish himself as one of the most prolific goalscorers in France and win a move to Italy. Nonda began in humble surroundings, playing in a refugee camp in Tanzania where his eye for goal was spotted by the country's top club, Young Africans. Nonda had little difficulty settling into European football after joining FC Zürich in 1995, getting 24 goals in 1996/97. He continued to impress at Stade Rennais FC with 31 strikes in 62 games over two years, before AS Monaco FC broke the French transfer record to sign Nonda for €20m in July 2000. Scoring 26 goals in 35 games in 2002/03, he won the French Golden Boot and took Monaco to within a point of the title. He also made his mark at international level representing the country of his father, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and scoring twice on his debut against Djibouti. Two injury-ravaged campaigns followed, although he did return to play and score in Moaco's UEFA Champions League semi-final win against Chelsea FC in 2003/04. In 2005 he joined AS Roma on a free transfer but after a promising start to his first season in Italy he suffered a knee injury that ruled him out for five months and meant that he also missed the 2006 African Cup of Nations. Despite this, he still managed to find the net eight times in 22 league appearances during 2005/06. edited to add a quick thought, as hes a congo international and axe and benni are south africa, african nations time could be interesting....actually im willing to pay axes ticket, but the other two may be missed.

I have to say this transfer strikes me as odd, hes vastly over rated and seriously under performed, its ok sayings hes on a "highly incentivised" contract and at some stage he will hopefully will come good. but if the contract is anything like dwight yorkes was he just needs to be available to the first team squad and gets some massive weekly sum. Personally id prefer he gets minimum wage and a 10k a goal, goal bonus as for coming good at some stage the guy has been with some very good managers who have been unable to turn his career around, so scuse me if im not overly excited by this one.

I think Harry is great at picking up unknowns and kids and turning them into potentially good players, however he does seem to loose the plot when he gets money, i mean look what he bought at WHU with the money he made from selling ferdinand.......

Spanish clubs used to have a bit of a bonus in that football is there chosen "national sport" they used to receive HEAVY subsidisation on transfer fees from local and national governments to keep improving there "national game" and keeping there league competitive, this was certainly the case up to a few years ago, not sure if its still the case now but certainly has helped them in the past! Somewhat annoying to think that something silly like 60% of the tax a uk worker pays goes to the eu, 80% of which up till recently was going to spain and they were spending it on transfers like david beckham, ronalado, zidane etc!!

I was listening on radio rovers and the commentators made an interesting point which could well proove to be valid, the ref was giving nothing our way at all, possibly as a result of the press our style of football has generated and we were paying the price. If that is the case dickovs done our reputation no good at all and may further hinder our ability to receive impartial refereeing. from what i heard on the radio we were dire in the second half and can hardly remember more than a handful of forays into there half (based on what i was hearing). what price two strikers instead of a striker and a defender i wonder......

Regardless of whether you hate GS with a passion or your wearing rose tinted glasses when looking at his achievements, the rather sad fact remains that we have once again accumulated only 14 points after the first 18 matches of a Premiership season. The previous occasion was in 1998/99 when we finished 19th and were relegated..... so rather than wondering if we can help get GS the sack id be more content to stay in the league!!! I also find it rather fickle as to the attitude towards GS, he got us out of division 1, won us a worthington and i dont recall seeing many complaints then, fact is he got offered a better job and took it, i doubt many here would be turning round and saying no you can keep your much better/higher paid job thanks im fine here..... Granted some of his transfers were poor but he did bring stead in last season which kept us up, lets see if sparky brings someone in which is going to the same in January............................ As for playing people out of position from what i've seen sparky is just as bad, ive seen emerton, jansen, thompson and reid all playing left wing when none of the are (as we saw in the GS era!) but has that stopped him playing them there....

I have one question which whilst listening to the radio couldnt quite understand. Before the game even started palace were quoted as playing 4-5-1, which indeed they did and to quote the radio commentators there forward didnt get a look in by the 4 rovers defenders who just crowded him out, who the rest of the time stood around doing v little. Now to my mind, whilst palace sticking with this tactic shouldnt we have play perhaps someone like gray who is a better at going forward to try and get the ball forward and in the back of net, still leaving 3 at the back to deal with a lone attacker... Then once palace changed and came forward a little he could have subbed gray for someone more defence minded (jay). It just seems odd to me that you play 45 mins of football with 4 defenders covering one striker, we will stay in this league by winning games, not by drawing them and we wont win standing around at the back. Nice cheerful reading on the bbc site that we now have the same stats as our relegation season at this date....