Benni dreaming of CL with Rovers African Nations Cup

An interestingly vituperative piece on England's plight

Mike Newell going onto the attack

And Venables thought... There is supposed to be a picture here of Venables looking like "what the **** was that?" as Beckham is substituted.

Everybody must now be praying for Russia to get the result they need. I shudder to think what McClown would consider to be a line-up capable of beating Croatia if we still need to win that one. Ah well, that's as close to Austria and Switzerland any of the home nationsare going to get in 2007/8. Austria were every bit as woeful as their recent form suggested from the bit I saw.

I'll have a look if Bentley comes on. Excellent post on 606 encouraging me to watch what I am missing: "This does not look like an England side desperate to inspire its fans to have hope, just a bunch of mismanaged crocks coming to pick up their payslips"

George Cohen calls it exactly as it is.

FA charging Luton directors past and present and six agents over mucky business.

I see that the "Football Manager" play station generation are out in force on this thread.

Emerton interview at Brockhall Scroll down and click on his pic to play.

More details on the deal for Sparky and team

I don't want it to look like I have anything against the completely ignorant incompetent thickos working for the press but was it was or was it not 2nd v 6th in the Premier League this twit was reporting on, and the same player he and his chums from the reform school for the severely educationally subnormal routinely say Spurs are interested in/ about to buy/ have bought?

What is becoming ever clearer is how much of a unit Mark Hughes and his back room team are. Losing them all would be a body blow to Rovers but absorbing them could be a head ache even for MU. Would Ferguson really want to see his entire support team lose their jobs when he retires? No doubt club management/ownership and Mark Hughes have sat down and addressed all possibilities in pulling the new contracts together. What is not yet clear is whether the rolling element is continued, extended or ended.

Football's Mr Nasty at it again

Sparky about to sign one year extension to contract

Considering the bad blood history between them, the bookies must have been ecstatic when the Souey to Wigan bandwagon got going. Dave Whelan has just brought himself to utter a dignified: "I've not spoken to Graeme for three years," he said. "I've never spoken to him at all about being the manager of Wigan. How that story's come about is a mystery to me." (BBC)

Problem with Lucas was not the odd cynical challenge (although he had those in his locker) but his inevitable lapses of concentration with about five horrors every season. What little I have seen at WHam of Lucas indicates his all round game is down a notch from his time with Rovers and he managed three horror lapses against Boro in 15 minutes- Boro contrived to miss all three gilt chances. In subsequent snatches of games he also looked less tight than he was for us. Ignoring his lapses, Lucas could completed lock down his side of the pitch as a no go zone which is something Steven has not yet managed. But Steven keeps his concentration up so all round I'd say Steven is the better of the two.

Mike Ashley rubbishes media reports linking Mark Hughes. But word for BFS, watch for Alan Shearer... Footballfancast praise for Sparky. Interesting when I read the claims for Moyes and O'neill as best manager of a non-top 4 club, my instinctive reaction was "you must be joking". That really brought home how far Sparky has progressed for me.

Unless it transpires McClaren paid his own way and did this in his vacation, the guy has to go.

Fascinating article on the future of sports broadcasting. Explains why we kicked off at 5.15 yesterday and did not get the 12.45 slot. The pressures on collective v individual rights deals will become enormous if the American owners of Man U and Liverpool see no other way out of their debt trap. Some extremely interesting figures about "passionate" armchair fans.

Why would we want a load of view blocked seatsa when we already cannot sell seats with perfectly good vision? Ewood was designed the way it is to allow the air to circulate around the pitch. I think home plus corporate seats total to almost 24,000. But if we fill those, the club can start chucking visiting support out of the Darwen End - we are way over the minimum allocation required.

With the average up 3,000 on last season, at least 2,000 more people are turning up at Ewood to watch the less fancied teams compared with last season.

After the Liverpool game, Rovers attendance up to 23,346 on average. That lifts us to 15th in the average attendance list and away from bottom of the %age of the ground filled list. This graph helps put it in context. 2006/7 saw a 100 improvement on 2005/6 so virtually unchanged so 2007/8 looks like it could show a big leap although I do think the lack of Bank Holiday games bacause of TV schedules will hurt us somewhat.

It isn't ideal but I read on here that effectively the Board calculated they were investing about £1m in net loss in gate income in the 25% price reductions. When you think that gates felll from an average of over 26,000 to 21,000 in three years in the Premiership the Board might well have concluded if that trend continued they were going to lose the £1m anyway. I agree with Hasta to an extent in that there seems to be a ceiling to the numbers of home supporters Rovers can attract and that there is a limited price elasticity of demand. However, the 25% reduction seems to be beating the targets set for it of increasing numbers by 10%. Season ticket sales for all of last year (including half season-tickets) were around 12,000 and the club will launch its half-season ticket sale with almost 15,000 full season tickets already sold. The attendance against Liverpool yesterday showed that the ST holders are turning up- Rovers' attendance numbers are actually bodies through the turnstiles, not number of tickets sold I believe. Then attendances before yesterday were up by around 2,000 on average matching to the corresponding fixture last year. Bad attendances against "unattractive" opposition are now 19,000+ whereas previously they were 17,000 which is a good sign that the underlying platform of support has increased by more than 10%. Of course Rovers have launched what promises to be one of the most exciting seasons in years so the price impact might not be the only cause. Perhaps worth comparing with Bradford who slashed prices. Despite being in danger of relegation from the football league (when they had high hopes of promotion), over 13,000 turned up yesterday to see the 2-1 home defeat to Brentford in a division which looks like it could be suffering a big decline in attendances otherwise this season.

Well its Tribal but not the first media to report that a new deal for Mark Hughes is under negotiation. Here we go again, its only Tribal but Mark Hughes to replace the hugely disappointing Sam Allardyce. I wonder if Mike Ashley would get his finger out and sort out his dismal shopping chain and the branch at Ewood in perticular.