After dominating the game in the first half, with Friedel being a spectator, Rovers took the lead 5 minutes into the second half when Benni McCarthy scored his first premiership goal for Rovers. Following the goal, Everton made some tactical changes and upped the pace, which resulted in substitute Cahill getting the equalizer with 5 minutes of the game remaining. In his post match comments Mark Hughes stated "We played really well for long periods. We were very comfortable, scored a goal and never looked in any danger. " "But towards the end Everton threw players forward and created pressure and got the goal - despite that we are reasonably pleased and take lots of positives." "We are disappointed not to have got the three points and to lose a goal like that, but we are off and running after losing at Portsmouth."

Why ? If they live in Blackburn, they can listen to match commentary in local radio or radio rovers. They can get up to the minut scores and action on the official rovers web site, the bbc web site and this message board. , Better still they could go to the game.

Preview by joey_big_nose With a new season only a few hours old it Rovers have already had a day that many supporters would want to forget. A three goal loss against a Portsmouth side looking to leave their poor form of last year well behind was a disappointing start to a season which had been met, at least by our own dour standards, optimistically. Neill’s sending off for two cautions, his seventh in his career, combined with Andy Todd’s single card dismissal causes vast problems for the management team- injuries are haunting Hughes at the moment. The defensive line-up that appeared at Fratton Park was already depleted but the loss of the Australian and our captain will reduce us to a very makeshift back line. Nelsen is making a quick recovery and may be available (although that seems unlikely), and the acquisition of Ooijer would be very timely if he arrived before Wednesday. Incidentally Rovers will have already shot to the top of the foul play table, a competion we have championed the last two seasons, so perhaps the possibility of a points deduction should we win it again this season (as Phillipl has mentioned) should be investigated. Creativity also seems at something of a premium with Tugay still to sit out a further two games after picking up a suspension at the end of the last campaign. Bentley has come in as understudy but still seems a good way off the class of the Turkish maestro. With Rovers at least appearing to eschewing the signing of a central midfielder this transfer window it must be fervently hoped by all Blackburn fans that the under 21 star will fulfil the promise that is at present all too fleeting. An early substitution resulting from an all-round poor performance on the South Coast could mean he loses his place in the side, although armchair pundits are forced to wonder who would come in to fill his berth. Sanity preserving positivism dictates that all this misery should be put behind us however, and Wednesday sees Rovers have an ideal opportunity to do just that. Blackburn on Everton in their second game of the season at Ewood park which was last season something of a fortress. The lads claimed 13 victories and 3 draws out of 19 matches including two outstanding results against Chelsea and Manchester Utd, so hopes for victory should not be presumed entirely outlandish. One of the great plus points of the summer break was the double signing of McCarthy and Roberts, two different types of striker who built up a complimentary partnership of power and skill over the pre season. Neither really got into the game on Saturday, but all eyes will be on the new additions to create some gilt edged opportunities. Everton for their part have sparsely strengthened in the last few months, but those who they have brought in possess quality. The high profile signing of Andy Johnson (someone who will be looking to create a prolific partnership with fellow England international and former rover James Beattie) was followed by Tim Howard and the great defensive prospect Joleon Lescott. The Toffees have yoyoed up and down the table in recent years, finishing an astonishing fourth in 2004 and then dropping to an underwhelming 11th. On the weekend they managed a decent if fortuitous (apparently a penalty that never should have been) 2-1 victory over newly promoted Watford. Andy Van Der Meyder was left out of the side due to drinking shenanigans and that should carry over to Wednesday. For my money their biggest threats lie in the two strikers and the guile of Arteta, a player who scored an absolute cracker at Ewood Park last term. Click here for predictions

1. Chelsea 2. Manchester United 3. Arsenal 4. Liverpool 5. Rovers 6. Spurs 7. Newcastle 8. Bolton 9.Reading 10. West Ham 11.Middleborough 12. Manchester City 13. Wigan 14. Fulham 15. Aston Villa 16. Everton 17. Charlton 18. Portsmouth 19. Sheffied Utd 20. Watford

Nelsen is on his way back, sooner than expected. or he could be refering to Lucas joining Liverpool, which would free up funds to buy that PSV defender.

Not the start to the season, that supporters would have predicted or wanted as Rovers start the new campaign with a 3-0 away defeat at Portsmouth. To add insult to injury, Rovers had Lucas Neill and Andy Todd sent off.

Like the majority of supporters, I will be expect the Rovers to challenge for honours in the league and cup, yet deep down fear that a poor run could result in a relegation dog fight. Over the years following Rovers has been a roller coaster ride, that other clubs supporters can only dream of, play off finals, premiership championship, relegation, promotion, cup semi finals and a Worthington Cup Final win and usually done the hard way. Players and managers, great and bad have come and gone, whilst fair weather supporters have jumped ship following the glory days of Kenny Dalglish. Next Saturday Rovers kick off another season in the top flight and back in Europe hoping to resurrect those glory days under the guidance of Mark Hughes, who so far has emulated the early years of Dalglish’s reign. Whilst Dalglish took the club to promotion and premiership challenges, Hughes has taken Rovers from relegation fodder under Souness, to Cup Semi finalists and European qualifiers in his short reign. All this on limited funds, in complete contrast to his predecessors who had unlimited funds to play with in the transfer market. The loss of Bellamy, similar to the loss of Duff, was a massive blow, however on this occasion, unlike Souness after the sale of Duff, Hughes appears on first impressions to have found a replacement in a twin strickforce of Porto’s Benni McCarthy and Wigan’s Jason Roberts, plus a replacement for Dickov in Jeffers. Despite the loss of Bellamy, there has been some good news with Reid, Pedersen and Nelsen all committing themselves to another four years to the club, which establishes a consistency. With Nelsen having committed himself to the club today, Rovers will now be working on securing Lucas Neill and Emertons signatures on new contracts, to avoid loosing them on free transfers at the end of the season. So what does this season hold. Realistically the club should avoid a relegation dog fight, to finish above mid table. Without analysing all other clubs Rovers are one of the few who have retained some sort of consistency in retaining staff and have strengthen the squad, with 3 strikers, something that was lacking last season, having to rely heavily on Bellamy to get the goals. Rovers on paper should be chasing the leading pack of Chelsea, United, Liverpool and Arsenal to hopefully finish again in at least 6th spot. That said it would be great to qualify for Europe with a Cup Final win in Cardiff and who knows for once we may get past the first rounds in Europe. OK that is pushing it. So lets get behind Mark Hughes and the team, hoping for another nine month roller coaster ride in the premiership and the return of more glory days to Ewood. Predictions CLICK HERE

Maybe unleaded will realise what I was trying to tell him now.

Rovers central defender Ryan Nelsen has agreed a new 4 year contract to stay at Ewood Park. During the Summer Rovers have repeatedly turned down offers, which included a sum of £5 million for The New Zealand International from Portsmouth.

Ah now I know your alias.......watch your back. the stalker

Match Comments by Paul Enjoyed the game which Rovers controlled throughout although Brad did have three decent saves to make. Very impressed with the Mccarthy/Robers partnership, to state the obvious, they must be the first choice up front. After this game I'm in the lost one, gained three camp. Last season if Bellamy was out we were looking around for a striker, if Jeffers proves OK, and there was nothing in his play to suggest which way he'll go, we now have three. NZ were poor opposition, not bad, just a lower standard and we'd have been disappointed if Rovers had not won comfortably. Lucas looked comfortable enough at centre-back, Gray was fine but I'd reserve judgement on Mokoena at RB. Reid was up and down the right doing a lot of work, and would have been my MOTM. Savage ran around as usual and put in 2 or 3 crunching tackles which upset the NZ boys. Overall the team looked fit, passed well, moved for each other. Looking forward to Everton to see if this can be carried through to the PL.

Score Update

Benni McCarthy scored 15min into his Ewood Park debut for Rovers against New Zealand in the final pre season friendly. Good link up play by Rovers other close season striker Jason Roberts in the 28th min lead to Steven Reid scoring from 20 yards. Roberts denied a debut goal on 40min, for hand ball and just before half time which was ruled off side. Half Time Rovers 2 New Zealand 0 2min into the second half Benni McCarthy gets his second and Rovers 3rd of the afternoon. 20min into the second half Jeffers makes his Ewood Park debut, coming on to replace Bentley. Fine work by McCarthy and Paul Gallagher set up Roberts for his debut goal in the 65th min to give Rovers a 4-0 lead. In the final minutes Jason Roberts scored his second and Rovers 5th goal of the afternoon. Final Score 5 - 0

Cant pay by cash. Bit of a dilema then. This has back fired on at least one company. A client went to pay an outstanding dept, the girl in the office stated that she couldnt accept cash payment and this was confirmed by her supervisor. The client documented the event, which included the name of the girl and the supervisor. The company took the customer to court for non payment and the judge threw it out, clearing the customer of all debts, as the company had refused to take the coin of the relm as payment.

Another season, and still we cant get the players names right. Its McCartney And wasnt he lead singer in Wings. Anyway Great read Bob.

The Bob Flemming Pre Season Report. The anticipation of seeing all your old favourites running around at half speed! The new signings! Are they any good? (I’ll never forget seeing Grabbi’s first game for Rovers on a pre-season tour in Germany, “Here we go!” I thought “Seven million pounds worth of striker here, he’ll rip this German pub team to pieces!” He had no pace, he constantly drifted out to the left wing and had very little of that unquantifiable thing called a “presence” about him, still I’m no judge.) I think we’ve done pretty well this close season in the transfer market. Jason Roberts is more than a handful for any centre half, he posed us problems last season at any rate. Franny Jeffers? Who knows, the potential is there. I’ll not hold my breath though, anything from him will be a bonus. We also bought a keeper who I know nothing about, Jason Brown. We also brought in McCarthy more on “him” later. Downside was obviously losing the occasionally hamstrung Welsh Weasel, but by bringing in two players in the shape of Roberts & McCarthy I can’t see how that area has been weakened. Of course Neill and Bert refusing to sign new contracts, isn’t the best of news (I’m joking about Bert by the way). Some still believe and prattle on about Nelsen going to Portsmouth, this despite; Rovers turning down the initial £4.3m bid (they’ve since upped it to £5m according to reports- wooooooooo!), the player making the right noises about wanting to be fit and back in the team to face Portsmouth, Rovers playing European football next season and finally Portsmouth buying a new centre half in the shape of a wardrobe in Sol Campbell. We shall see. Anyway, the pitch? How will it look? All yellow and burnt like my lawn? Will the same people be sat round you as last year making the same rubbish jokes? Has the price of a pint gone up on the Blackburn End? Has it gone down?! Will the bar staff be as inefficient as in recent seasons? I’d just like to clear something up. There was talk at the back end of last season on BRFCS.com of my leaving for www.rovers.co.uk in the summer. I’m pleased to say that it never happened, they said they wouldn't get the money together but mainly it was because they didn’t want me in the first place, but if they had made an approach I’d have turned it down flat. I love this place, the town, the people, even the endless, boring, Transfer Rumour threads. Everything. In fact I hope to do all my monthly reviews on BRFCS.com for the rest of my career unless of course something better turns up. And they say there’s no loyalty in football anymore? Moving on, we beat near neighbours Accrington Stanley 3-0 pre season on July 19th. Goals from two of our new players Jason Roberts and Francis Jeffers. Matt Derbyshire with the third. Good luck to Stanley next season, their first back in the league since 1962. Older viewers will recall the events that surrounded their demise, but just in case here’s a reminder. Basically Stanley were forced to resign from the Football League. Apparently, so I’ve been told, there was a meat shortage in the burnley area. burnley’s then Chairman, Bob “The Butcher” Lord, wielding his financial strength like a rusty meat cleaver, actually bought Stanley’s first team squad, management team and board of directors and used them to make pies, which he then sold at turf moor on match days. Some in Accrington will never forgive burnley for what happened. Who can blame them? July 22 - saw us take on Hamburg somewhere in Europe. We drew one each, Morten Gamst Pedersen (as he now likes to be known – and that name will appear on the back of his shirt next season) scored with a trademark spectacular goal from 25 yards smacked high into the top… blah de blah – you know what he does. July 28 - Rovers watched Greek champions Olympiakos. August 5 - Rovers beat Ale Mania Aachen 3-2 somewhere in Europe. Sounds like a good place to visit. McCarthy opening “his” account, Jason Roberts with the second and Morten Gamst Pedersen with the third, which was probably a volley or something from an acute angle that he had no right to score from etc etc. August 9 – Sparta Rotherham beat Rovers 1-0 in a game played in Holland, Nr Belgium. Which brings us to Saturdays match against the New Zealand national team. A strange choice for our last friendly before the season starts. In fact a bloody stupid choice. Have you seen the size of those lads? They’re huge! Their pack will simply be too strong for us and we’ve too many light weights in our scrum. I can only see this going one way I’m afraid. I just hope there aren’t many injuries. I know the Welsh like their Rugby but this is taking things too far as far as I’m concerned. But how can I finish this review thingy / nonsense without recounting the tale, no make that the saga, of our attempts to sign a third new striker. I’ve done a little search on the internet on two of the main characters via top internet search engine googel, I was surprised by the results… Mido: Overtired First of all Hughesy went after Mido, the big burly purple Egyptian with stupid hair. Last year he was on loan at one of the biggest clubs in the world (up there with Birmingham City), London mega club and the second biggest club in North London, Tottenham Hotspurs. Mido is known to many within football, bizarrely, as “the fourth choice Tweenie”. Basically, as I understand it, and I still don’t, he just messed us about for a month whilst looking for a better offer from Children’s ITV. Probably. Oh well, whatever, nevermind. So Hughes looked elsewhere and did we get lucky or what? Benni McCarthy: Nice Eyes Our glorious Welsh leader turned his attentions to South African Benni McCarthy. Well, what can you say? I’ve gone on record before (“Nothing Surprises Me Anymore (In Football)” EMI Cat. No. 79573220. Released Feb 12 1987 – Deleted Feb 13 1987. No one bought it) to say that nothing surprises me in football anymore. And now this! Good Heavens! What a good looking lad! This could be the signing that puts a few more bums on seats. Hughes is said to have been chasing Benni for well over 12 months now, it’s not hard to see why. The new third kit will not sell well though. Mark my words on this. Red “shirt”, blue shorts and no socks is not going to catch on. There are already doubts in some quarters about Benni’s strength though. On signing “he” said “I’ve had so many opportunities for me to come to England but always something seemed to go wrong, the wind always blew me to Portugal, to Spain or Holland but never to England.” That doesn’t sound good to me. Last thing we need on a wet and windy day in December is for our star centre forward to go up for a high cross at the Blackburn End only to be caught by a gust of wind and end up in the middle of Amsterdam, Barcelona, or as above, Las bleeding Vegas. Franny Jeffers could well suffer a similar fate. Still, Hughesy know’s best and he hasn’t let us down yet has he? So, there you have it, they’ll be more of the same weak gags as last season coming up over the next few months, hopefully you’ve forgotten most of them by now. Another new season! European football as well! Bring it on!

With Rovers final pre season friendly due on Saturday against the New Zealand national side at Ewood, Rovers' very own Kiwi, Ryan Nelsen, is ready to play for either side in a bid to recover match fitness. The Rovers centre back is quoted in the Times as saying. " I want to make my way back into Blackburn's starting eleven and this could be a great opportunity to play"

A solitary 51st min goal by Yuri Rose was enough to give Sparta Rotterdam win against Rovers tonights pre season friendly in Rotterdam. Chilean trialist Jorge Acuna making his dedut for Rovers lasted 84 min before being replaced by Robbie Savage.

Blackburn End. Just to the right of the goal and six rows from the back, just along from Bob Fleming and Capt Kayos.

Benni McCarthy scored on his debut for Rovers as they beat Aachen 3-2 in their pre season friendly. Jason Roberts another of Mark Hughes summer buys and Morten Gamst Pedersen scored the other goals for Rovers.

Yes we are rather shy and reserved on row 29, so keep the noise down and dont stand up.

Moved from transfer to Should DD come home

Well, we would have Dunn, Derbyshire, Gally, Waggy, Steb, Bob Fleming, Cocker, den, you, me etc etc

pongo, was on lone from Liverpool.

Rovers have made their second signing of the day with the announcement of the signing of Wigan striker Jason Roberts. Roberts, the nephew of former England and West Brom striker Cyril Regis has signed a four year contract for an undisclosed fee.