Monaco have a history of eccentric transfer dealings. They almost went bust at the time they shipped Nonda out which is probably why Roma picked him up the way they did. Anyway, unlike Nelsen and Mokoena, Nonda has long been a well-known name outside his home and adopted countries.

This is a nice preview.

With the windfall coming from Sky next season, probably nobody would be more pleased to see well over 20,000 at Ewood on Thursday than John Williams and the Board. It would be a pointer for how to price next season and good evidence for the football attendance committee of the Premiership John Williams is a member of.

It is quite a while since I felt such anticipation and excitement about Rovers. It may all go flat but if Benni and Chris are shaping up in training the way Mark Hughes and the boys want them to then we could be going into that run of tough games starting in mid October with one heck of a potent front line- and one which the opposition don't know too much about.

Following the banning and fining of Ashley Col's agent, the FA have reportedly asked UEFA to go after Zihavi for his role in the affair. Spurs alomost ended up playing with themselves when they were drawn against Slavia Prague! The Guardian on the unravelling of ENIC's crazy football empire and the prospects for greater limitations on ownership. Have to say the ENIC plan was singularly dumb. I feel sorry for Vicenza which seemed a nice club in the sleazy Italian football world.

Interesting to see notlob not having any problems beating Pompey tonight. That's a shame as I'd been hoping Pompey would prolong Spuds' misery in the next game. As it is, Big Sam popped 'Arry's bubble.

Judging by the first few weeks, only AC are going to make light work of their points deduction but -8 might yet be enough to deny them the Championship. Irrespective of whether the match fixing is at an end, there is refreshing feel to Italian football this season.

The Guardian uses the Boro match report to comment on Rovers' lack of support.

Determining point of the season. Win and we lay the UEFA bogey plus have four more European nights to look forwards to no doubt popping out of bag 4 in the UEFA draw with 3 higher ranked clubs already waiting for us but what the hell- boro and Bolton topped their groups last year so we should be ok. Lose or draw 3-3 and all last year's good work in coming 6th are down the loo. What is there left to kick-on with? Rovers to win 3-1 in front of 19,000.

50 transfers worthy of further investigation... Looks like the Stevens Report will be as big a damp squib as the Panorama programme. I thought he'd been hired to do the investigating?

It is highly improbable that Nonda will recover the explosive pace he had before that horrific break but Sparky keeps saying he hasn't reached full fitness level yet and that must be a promising sign that there is much more to come from him. What I do like is his directness which for a team that tends to pass it about is a valuable dimmension to his game. He has good touch and if he and Benni get an understanding going so he rather than the opposing centre-half is the recipient of Benni's flicks, it could be a very exciting season to be a Rover. Incidentally, what happened to Chris? It was back to Shabani yesterday.

Not necessarilly a bad draw- result on the night after extra time and penalties. Great for Rovers' supporters that we will be getting probably the best team in Europe at Ewood a second time this season. We've beaten Chelsea in the recent past and gave them a bit of a fright when they came to Ewood during our poor start. Chelsea will have not been wanted a trip to Ewood, that's for sure.

Not particularly funny nor accurate but a Boro preview that is a bit different.

There is also Ewido anti-spyware from AVG as well. You have to manually update and run it in the free version but unless yyou are coming into contact with naughty sites and e-mails, running it overnight once a week or so is fine. It usually picks up a tracker or two coming from somewhere.

Just out of curiosity, is anything happening about the live screening of matches? It does seem that the collapse in Rovers' support has coincided with games being available in pubs, the 50 minute highlight programme and the drummers. I think the other reasons such as lack of local lads is somewhat peripheral to the argument. If it were true we would have seen a massive loss of support when Duff and Dunn were transferred but that season was well within trend.

Just out of interest jim, were there any drummers at that Charlton game back in 2002?

I was at a meeting in Central London that day and saw the results coming off one of those old tickertape machines. Middlesbrough 1 Blackburn ("we lost today" says I) 5- stood there dumbfounded. I think we won 3-0 at Ayresome the next season and won the two after up there as well. If there is any pride or motivation up in Boro these days, Rovers are in for a torrid opening 20 minutes after Wednesday's Boro result.

It would be fantastic to see a 20,000+ crowd on Thursday to show that dropping ticket prices really does work.

I'm surprised this thread has even reached page 2 Chesh. This is a non-starter if ever there was one.

The Lancashire Telegraph quizzed the Rovers about the Todd tapup but did not get much out of the club ahead of the Panorama screening. Another Rovers web site claims to have more detailed knowlege of the Todd, Neil and Harrison situation. If this is true, it is encouraging all round for the Rovers.

That must have been the most amazing game to have been at. I can remember perhaps two games in the 40 odd years I've been following football in which 4 goals have been scored in 5 minutes but for 4 goals to be scored on the last three minutes + injury time is something else. I wonder if football attendances are falling because two many fans like posters above have zero imaginations and no sense of the wonder and potency of football?

I don't know which post you are referring to but that's an agent called Charles Collymore whom Mike Newell has named and not Lucas Neill's man. Guardian says Panorama will name names and will play a tape of Kevin Bond when he was with 'Arry at Pompey Big sam expecting to be named. Profile of Collymore that puts him in a good light.

Stephan Henchoz will probably be playing. I doubt of any our injured trio are close enough to a come back to get a run out and I wouldn't dare approach Andy Todd if he has to turn out for the stiffs.

Woodgate is showing just what a class player he is and the rapidly recovering Huth might be back to make his Boro debut. So this could be the tale of two defences- Boro's rapidly improving and our's.... Nasty wake-up on this one. Boro 2 Rovers 1

'Arry has been quoted before as saying that he likes Todd as a hard player.