I'm just happy he said something poitive in the end.

Well in that case you will accept that Hughes was telling one porky after another at the Press conference and consciously adopted the stone face to avoid giving the game away as he was telling the lies.

So you believe City was first choice and Hughes was never considering Chelsea then? And Hughes will have a free hand at Eastlands??? Darth Paul has made an excellent and well balanced post nine up from here. Makes far more sense than lechuck's post.

There are ways of telling porkies and ways of telling porkies but Hughes' press conference was one dead pan delivery humdinger of a lie after another. He must have had dental anaesthetic to have kept his face so immobile. We now know that he and Bowen had a six hour session with a guy who was on his first day in the job, a 15 minute telephone call with the Thai despot and that the Citeh blokes were bricking themselves when Sparky and Bowen were "delayed in traffic on the M40". As though they could not have made a mobile call- there were two of them. No doubt we will find out that either Williams or Kenyon were talking to them and they'd pulled off the M40 for a long hard think about what they were about to do. This is an extremely inauspicious start to their time at Eastlands.

Sparky gambled on Chelsea and got the booby prize- nothing more or less sinister than that. The records of Rovers' Premier League Managers (straight crib off Wikipedia): Name Nat From To Record G W L D Win % Mark Hughes September 2004 June 2008 188 82 59 47 43.61 Graeme Souness March 2000 September 2004 212 86 65 61 40.56 Brian Kidd December 1998 November 1999 44 12 14 18 27.27 Roy Hodgson June 1997 November 1998 62 22 22 18 35.48 Ray Harford June 1995 October 1996 64 24 27 13 37.5 Kenny Dalglish October 1991 June 1995 195 102 47 46 52.30 When you consider Souness' record includes the promotion run, Sparky getting a higher win percentage is seriously impressive.

Yes a heartfelt thanks to Mark Hughes. He gave us a lot of good reasons to be genuinely proud about Blackburn Rovers apart from our basic emotional attachment to the club. We had a lot of highs and more genuinely great moments to look back on during the past three and three quarters seasons than most of us thought possible after the Souness regime had turned sour. He leaves the club with a great squad of players and far far stronger than when he came to us. Sadly no silverware to look back to (MGP's missed header at OT-grrr) but that is all that is missing from his tenure. Hughes himself might have been an education in profanity on the touchline but he always conducted himself with panache and quiet authority and has been a great ambassador for Blackburn Rovers. It's a shame that the Roman ego stymied Mark's chance at having a go at Chelsea and that his bold gamble on putting Citeh into play has meant he has slipped downwards, backwards and out of Ewood at the end. But then again. £3m a year for 3 years isn't that bad a booby prize!

My recollection is that Jack invested in underground heating and the Ewood Park drainage even before he did anything about the stadium re-build. The first pitch didn't quite work so he did it again (£1m each time) and Ewood got the best pitch award in second season up. Lost it to Arsenal in 94/5 when there were games before Christmas played in unusually wet conditions and recovered it in 95/6. I am certain there was a WLW. Since then the technology of pitch preparation has moved on dramatically to the extent that Rovers cannot win again- not because of skimping but the respective climates mean that a perfectly prepared pitch in the south east will almost always beat an identical pitch in the north west.

Interestingly back in the mid '90s I happened to get chatting to a sports grounds seeds and turf salesman in a pub in the South Downs. He reckoned that Rovers' Steve Patrick was one of the best groundsmen in any sport in the UK so its good to see Steve's still giving the Ewood pitch his TLC. Ewood used to get voted regularly the best pitch in the Premier League.

All sprinkling and draining new Rovers pitch.

Sorry I mis-read initially. Agreed re Souness personality and the reason I am so relieved we avoided Dowie although I was very in favour when the Rovers job was open. Ince has a similar reputation and I'd be horrified to see him at Ewood.

Official site is saying Sparky is on his holidays in Manchester. (The last two words are my joke - the rest is true)

Paul, you absolutely right. If you look elsewhere, the 1949 Turin aircrash has created an enduring emotional/mythical bond between Torino and the home city that will forever make Juve foreigners there. The Maltese Man U Supporters Club was founded in the immediate aftermath of Munich and remains to this day the largest Man U Club outside Manchester.

Ferguson points towards Queiroz as his successor Whilst the Torygraph has a lead story and comment on why Hughes is best bet for Chelsea. The reality is he would be the most sensible choice but I don't think Kenyon and Abramovich are doing sensible at the moment.

LT- Rovers not considering Duff

I don't know what your gripe is. As to what will happen to Man U- they will carry on but thankfully unable to use their current succes to obliterate all opposition because of the Glazers' ownership. As to what will happen to the Glazers- their economic model is not working and they have an extremely tough credit climate to try to make it work. Profits even in this wildly successful season are scarcely paying interest never mind settling debt and they have £150m of hedge fund money that takes the keys to OT off them in May 2010 if they don't pay it off with interest.

This is really amusing as football supporters' memories can so easily be clouded by subsequent events. Go back to when the Glazers were buying into Man U and look at it through that time perspective- Things that have gone in their favour are: - On field performance has been ahead of plan and budget It was by no means assured that Man U would start winning again. Abramovich, Mourinho and Chelsea looked like they were disappearing into a league of one with financial muscle nobody could compete with and the personnel to make it happen. United were one of the rivals-Arsenal were about to complete the Emirates and had a fabulous young team whilst Liverpool were up for sale and could have been bought by an olygarch or Middle Eastern royalty. - Coming through the two year limitation on transfers without damaging the on-field performance Literally every big money signing RFW has made since the Glazers have arrived has been a success. If RFW had not improved his success percentage in the transfer market from what it was before, there would have been no double. - The collective Sky/Setanta deal being more than anticipated At the time the Glazers were buying, the EU were still involved and every EPL club was budgeting on a 10% reduction in media income, not a 30% increase which is what transpired. - The willingness of the Mancs to pay 12% per annum price increases four years running and swallowing the forced buying of seats for Cup matches This is the sad one for ordinary fans. There were always enough prawn sandwiches to replace the decent Man U fans with not enough in their pockets. And to repeat the point I made earlier. All the prize and media money from the double this year is not enough to pay this year's interest bill. The Glazers leveraged their past history to take a huge gamble on Man U using other people's money. And the rest of us all agree- good luck to them because as a plc, Man U would now be so far out of sight it would be breath taking. Imagine what Ferguson would be doing with a £100m+ transfer budget this summer. Of the current generation of owners, Abramovich and Lerner are heroes in that they are genuinely adding to the value and worth of their clubs. Glazers and Hicks/Gillett are zeroes who are doing nothing but destroying value and worth in their clubs.

I am not saying they are random events and I am not saying they are buffoons- you are making those bits up yourself!

Just out of curiosity, were there any sightings of the Glazer clan on Wednesday? If not, has there been any comment?

Players play best (and mangers manage best) when they feel 1) confident, secure 2) Relaxed 3) Focussed 4) Aware of what is expected of them and how to achieve these targets. Blackburn Rovers are an excellent provider of those four things. Spurs, West Ham and Newcastle United are extraordinarily poor at it. Very good point and something to be extremely wary of if Rovers change ownership.

Shame he won't miss any more Newcastle games assuming he's a good boy inside.

That is why I wrote the Glazers and not Man U would be wiped out- I should have said the Glazers' control over Man U would be wiped out. Come on its very obvious what the Glazers have done- they have had the balls to gamble much bigger than any other people were willing to do and had the reputational collateral of having done enough good deals in the past to gamble almost 100% with other people's money. They got the deals away to buy Man U when market conditions were ideal for doing this. There is no way they could pull the same trick this summer. And in part therein lies their problem: Things that have gone in their favour are - On field performance has been ahead of plan and budget - Coming through the two year limitation on transfers without damaging the on-field performance - The collective Sky/Setanta deal being more than anticipated - The willingness of the Mancs to pay 12% per annum price increases four years running and swallowing the forced buying of seats for Cup matches Things that have not gone in their favour are - The famed intercontinental marketing expertise is making very modest headway in terms of building revenues and profits - Failure to get good deals on rolling debt in the first twelve months did not cut interest charges in the way the Glazers hoped - Failure to take an unattractive deal to refinance 18 months ago whereas now the market conditions mean there are simply no deals to be done - As a consequence, debt is increasing and interest charges growing faster than the rate of growth in revenue and earnings before interest depreciation and amortisation - And they are now at the mercy of a Hedge Fund which can put Directors on the Board any time it wants. No doubt it is extracting a high price in terms of management information being supplied in detail and very frequently. The Glazer high wire act continues gratis the Premier League title and the trip to Moscow but it just means if they over-balance in any way, they will fall higher and heavier. Do you know how they are handling the May 2010 deadline by the way? Indebtedness of Man U and Chelsea. Two points worth remembering- Jack Walker also used interest free loans to Rovers which the Trust converted into ordinary shares when the change of accounting rules meant that the club would struggle to maintain its ordinary business if they were not converted. The fact Chelsea have not done that means they must be getting 100% of their ordinary finance from Abramovich and not using banks. - Abramovich has spent a larger sum on luxury yachts and airplanes than some estimates put the Glazer family wealth at.

Imagine facing all that white the morning after the night before..... I was reaching for an aspirin just looking at that picture after a long day on the go.

How do you work that one out Eddie? If there were a 20% reduction in money available all round in the EPL, Rovers would have temporary pain but with the Trust ownership and no unmanageable debts, we'd come through relatively OK. As it is, the Rovers' board always has to plan for us having a poor season- finishing 17th rather than 7th would probably take 15% out of the Rovers' income. The Glazers on the other hand would be wiped out- £40m less per year to service debt which in turn would be unsupported by enterprise value as that would fall by much more than 20% because all the growth assumptions would have gone through the window.

If Hughes goes for him, he's good enough. If not, he's not.

OK look at it this way- In the year Man U recaptured the Premier League title, their overall debt increased by 50% more than Spurs' total turn over. About half that increase in debt came through Man U buying the likes of Hargreaves, Anderson, Nani and Vidic on the never never. And that is the unfair advantage that Platini is talking about sorting out which most certainly would be good for the rest of the Premiership and a reason why I am very nervous about Rovers' ownership going that way. Why do you think Tevez is saying he hopes Man U will buy him in the papers today? Because he is there on loan and the way things are looking, Man U might well never exercise their option to buy him for the simple reason they are not able to.