Billy....that thing looks terrifying! meanwhile Poor red squirrels....

Sky's Business Website

I dont think its the fact they are showing games from foreign channels that is illegal. It is the showing of domestic football between 2.45-5.15 on a Saturday (cup finals are exempt I presume) that is illegal.

I dunno phil, it was just a bad goal all round. Friedel couldnt really move from his original position because initally the ball came to the front post - which Todd should have dealt with. Then it found its way to the back post where Mokoena had totally lost Hughes and Friedel just couldn't get across in time.

Maybe I've missed something, but why on earth are England playing Argentina in Switzerland next week? Whats wrong with playing in England?

The two years we weren't iirc

Alex Bruce is actually a good player. Its a pity he had to left Rovers because he might have had a change imo, but after the Savage thing that was never going to happen.

Taken this from the Chelsea match report today.... ...but of course all them five yellows will be because the ref hates Chelsea and therefore don't actually count

Nice preview Liam. I'm looking forward to this game. Charlton started this season very well, but I think we're about equal on paper. If Bellamy plays, which he should do I will be confident that we can beat them comfortably 2-0.

Well we can safely say that Bellamy changed the game for us. We played alright in the first half but never looked threatening. Dickov missed another good chance, whilst with other opportunities we seemed to just wanna walk the ball into the net. But when Bellamy came on this all changed. His awareness, pace and ability make so much difference for us, the buildup for our second goal was ace! Good performance, decent crowd as well, and into the last 16 of the cup. Not bad for a fiver!

Nor the family stand!

I've just read whilst on gmail, that in the UK they are no longer issuing @gmail.com acconts, because some company claims to have copyright over the name. Now you have to get an @googlemail.com accont until the issue is resolved. I dunno whether there was a gmail before google set it up, but if they can prove their case in court saying that google stole their name, they could make a few bob out of it!

We can now accept payment via the web though Paypal. You can either do it using your Paypal account, or by using a credit/debit card. http://www.roversisa.co.uk/join2.php

Bookies have to shorten the odds for England due to the huge number who will bet on them, just because it is England. Because if they priced them up at the correct price - 12s or 14s something like that - and if, on the offchance England won, they'd lose a hell of a lot of money!

I think he was referring to AESF, not you Cowan

To be fair, they did all have to get away from the ground early to catch them planes!!!

What’s going on this season?? Rovers now sit in 12th place having beating Man United at Old Trafford for the first time in 43 years!! The mood is certainly different to just a few days ago when we was all worried sat on just five points, what a difference 90 minutes can make! West Brom haven’t had the best of starts to the season and they fell to another defeat yesterday, this time by Charlton. They sit 18th in the table with five points and a goal difference of –5. Their only victory so far has been against Portsmouth, whilst they have also suffered defeats to Chelsea, Birmingham and Wigan. West Brom’s big signing of the summer was Nathan Ellington for £3m from Wigan. West Brom look to have quite a decent set of strikers – Earnshaw, Kamara, Horsefield, Campbell, Ellington and Kanu. They also brought in Chris Kirkland on loan from Liverpool as he looks to regain his England squad place. Their major outgoing player was Jason Koumas, a player who Rovers were rumoured to be interested, who went to Cardiff. What happened last season?? The last day of last season saw the end of the most dramatic relegation battle since the start of the Premiership. Four teams, only one could stay up and West Brom started bottom of the league. Norwich started in 17th place but they were overtaken by Southampton early on, and Norwich went on to lose 6-0. Geoff Horsfield scored for the Baggies and they were then in poll position. Palace got a penalty to overtake the Baggies, before Richardson scored! The Baggies’ game was won, but they still weren’t staying up. A late equaliser from Charlton against Palace saw West Brom move back up into the safe 17th place causing huge celebrations from the fans after a nerve-jangling last day. This time last season?? Rovers played West Brom on the opening game of the season – it ended in a 1-1 draw after Craig Short equalised for Rovers. However Rovers fans left Ewood confused after our lineup contained not one, not two but three left backs and a left winger in some sort of 4-1-3-2 formation! We also saw our one and only glimpse of de Pedro in a league game (and how ace he was!). Another 1-1 draw followed at the Hawthornes with Emerton getting the equalising goal for Rovers. Players for both teams?? I can only think of one player who has played for both clubs and that is the one and only Simon Garner! A hero of the blue and white halves, he left for West Brom after Rovers gained promotion to the Premiership, being replaced by Alan Shearer. He scored 9 goals in two years for West Brom before moving onto Wycombe. Anything else about West Brom?? Both Rovers and West Brom were founder members of the football league in 1888. West Brom were the first team to use the ‘deanocard’ season ticket system, Rovers followed the year after. Altogether Rovers have recorded 49 victories against West Brom, Albion have won 41 times and there have been 27 draws. The Opposition View… Thankyou to Chris from Baggies.com for answering my questions! At the time of writing (before our Man U game) we both sit on five points with a goal difference of minus five. Was this how you expected to start the season? I expected us to do reasonably well in the first couple of games (we took 4 points from 6) and then lose at Chelsea, but to carry on picking up points here and there. But instead it went pear-shaped with defeats by Wigan and Blues, we just snatched a draw at Sunderland and then lost again to Charlton. At the moment we look destined to spend most of the season in the bottom three and after the second half of last season it seems we're now going backwards. What do you need to do to improve? Team selection is the number one gripe with Albion fans, with certain players being chosen week in, week out despite underperforming and despite us having what look to be better replacements. Our League Cup game against Bradford gave a few players a chance to show what they could do, and they took it with a 4-1 win - but got dropped again for the Charlton game. Nathan Ellington scored twice and got dropped, Kamara scored and got dropped. What sort of message does that send to the players? You seem to have a few strikers on your books, which is your best partnership? That's one of the big problems - we don't seem know. There are 15 possible combinations of our six strikers and it looks like we're going to have to try them all to find out. Logic says that the Earnshaw/Ellington partnership has the most future ahead of it and they're our most expensive strikers, so in the absence of anything better I'd try to stick with this one and develop it. Some people have criticised Rovers this year for playing 4-5-1 so far. You have only played this formation once, any thoughts on it?? We used it quite a lot a few years back under Harford and did reasonably well, and Charlton seem to be finding it quite useful this season. I always think it depends on the midfielders - if you've got some good attackers in there with the legs to get forward quickly and turn it into a 4-3-3 then I think it can be a good way to play - though England's efforts with it a few weeks back would seem to contradict that. We both had a change of managers last year and we both survived relegation. Do you think you can survive again? If yes, where do you think you’ll finish? At the start of the season I predicted around 14th, which I still believe is possible with the players we have - but not the way we're going at the moment. How has losing Richardson affected you? Possibly more than we thought; his pace was a major asset and I think he lifted the whole team when he was here. Only Kamara seems to have that ability in our current squad and he's been woefully under-used. Where do you think Rovers will finish this year? Very close to us, wherever that is... There’s probably going to be a sub 20,000 crowd on Ewood on Saturday (not the most attractive fixture is it?). Are you suffering the same kind of problems in terms of declining support?? Yes, and we're not alone as stories from clubs all around the Premiership are proving. We haven't come close to selling out this season and only got 10,000 against Bradford despite cheap tickets. What in your opinion can be done about it? Going to football matches is now barely affordable for the average working man, who can watch many games cheaper on TV. Our tickets to visit Chelsea went up from £40 last year to £46 this year! For those wanting or needing to take their kids along too it's becoming prohibitive when you add on the overpriced food, shirts, programmes, parking and all the other sundries. The irritating fact is that, in the Premiership, income from ticket sales is a fraction of what the clubs get from TV and corporate sales, and prices could be slashed without making any real difference to the clubs; the increased sales of sundries and higher attendances would make up for most of it anyway. It needs all of the clubs to act together though, and I can't see that happening. How are you going to play and is there anyone we should be looking out for? I would expect a 4-4-2, with you swamping us in midfield. The ones to watch are Gera and Kamara, who will hopefully play on the wings and put in some decent crosses. New defender Curtis Davies is finding his feet and hopefully Ellington will be doing the same up front. Is there anyone in the Rovers team that you are worried about? That bunch of thugs in midfield! Finally, what is your prediction for the game? Think we’ve had a few 1-1s up your place, another one will do for me. Best wishes ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ COME ON YOU BLUES!!!!

Well I'm going, tickets are only a fiver for me and I might, just might get to see Rovers win. I really think we need to put out a strong team. By all means but in a few youngsters but I hope the majority need to be first team players. Oh and playing 4-4-2 would be nice

Dunno if this has been posted yet but John Williams is quoted on the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/e...rem/4264936.stm I do think the actual footy teams are realising that this years attendances are going to be a probem. The Premierleague keeps trying to play it down saying 'it is too early to draw analysis' but sooner or later they're going to have to do something about it.

That lad is excellent!!! Look at his website quite regularly. The Burnley report from 01 is one of the best iirc. As for the game, we might just scrape a win but I think it might be quite like Bournemouth last year.

Aye it is, but technically one of them wont count. Dunno if it has been mentioned on here on not, but Scotland's u21's 2-2 draw, has now been awarded as a 3-0 win to Italy as Scotland fielded a player who was menna be suspended.

If you're after skillful players here's one. He was in the same team as my brother in the academy and he's a very good player. He has always been extremely tricky ever since he was 9/10, the only thing that used to let him down was his final selection. Sometime he'd pass when he could easily take someone on, or sometimes try and take someone on when he should pass. Bit like Emerton really in that sense. But hopefully he has developed that side of his game a bit now. However he's only 16 and don't think he'd be ready for the first team just yet

Whilst Katrina has been called a once in a lifetime event, there is nothing to say it wont happen again. Lets not forget that the hurricane didnt actually hit the city, and if it had it may have been even worse. What I dont understand is that they're planning on rebuilding it back to how it was. They may build the walls higher and stronger, but there is no defence that can hold back anything. If in say 10 years time there is a bigger hurricane and the defences are breached once again - the impacts will be a lot worse as the volume of water will be a lot greater. So the city will be rebuilt, but it will still be vunerable to these kind of events.

His brother is Stuart Howson iirc. Was the captain of our youth team a few years back and made a couple of appearances in the cups.