Reffing officials AGAIN!!! There is a world of difference between a tumble over a trailing ankle which was actually under Tugay's body when Ghally went over it and the blatant last man body check which merits the red card. Mido's was a handball and he should have been gone for that two footed lunge before their equaliser any way. Rovers were encouragingly good. Save everywhere, McCarthy sensational, Gray superb, Henchoz and Ooijer stood up well and Tugay was out of this world. Only gripes would be Nonda still struggling to impose himself in the Prem, Bentley and Emo making some wrong decisions and MGP still in rehab; not as bad as he has been but not back to last season's form by a long way. The quality of some of Rovers' play especially when down to ten men was sensational. We are really going to miss Tugay now- games coming up where he would make all the difference. Commentators as bad as the officials- AGAIN!!!

nellybc has got it right! Ooijer captain. Berbatov and Keane on the bench for Spuds- very odd.

Aside from that there are some fundamental questions that need answering: Well rev, the answers are easily available- How do the Trustees see their long term relationship with the club? The Trustees are there to administer the Trust according to the terms of the settlor- Jack Walker. By definition, they have to abide by the letter and spirit of the deed of settlement. The views made public by the Trust after Jack's death will not alter. They expressed then as much as they are ever likely to say publicly about the terms of the Trust and their role in administering it. Effectively two things could change- a member of the Walker family could be so passionate for the Rovers that they would express by letter of wishes that the Trust be even more supportive than Jack wanted them to be - or the Trust itself falls on very hard times and the Trustees have to ration largesse between the beneficiaries. At present neither would seem to be likely. Perhaps someone could find the LET interview with the Trustees published late in 2000 and pin it in the site somewhere. That is about as definitive as we are going to get. Why has funding for the current manager dried up when the previous incumbent received excessively generous backing? I think this is way wide of the mark Rev. Funding from the Walkers/Trust has been at a steady £5/6m per year since Jack became involved. Had they agreed to be at Ewood, Rovers would have had a Bellamy/Gudjonson forward line with Roberts and Jeffers, and Dunn would have been recruited into midfield. As both Hughes and Williams have said, Rovers' transfer activity is determined by who is available and who wants to play at Rovers. What is the progress or otherwise in finding additional sources of investment. After all that was one of John Wiliams main tasks on the formation of the new superstreamlined board. We can't be that bad a bet with little or no external debt and new TV deals in the offing. This will be totally confidential. However, do you think the Icelanders moving in on the WHammers and the Jersy financiers pitching to Newcastle (the reality there is FF looking to leverage to get overall control) are doing so to pump £100m in without any prospect of return which is what Jack did or because they have seen an opportunity to make a more than tidy profit? Precisely, Rovers aren't a bad bet for someone to come in and make a profit out of the 60% rise in Sky income next year but is that what we want? It isn't what Jack wanted and you can be pretty sure the Trustees are debarred from bailing out in such circumstances. To whom is John Williams accountable if things aren't going so well? Come on Rev, JW is accountable to the shareholders whether things are going well or badly. Everybody knows that. If push comes to shove are we prepared to do what is necessary to make sure we actually benefit from the new TV deals? You bet they are- push, shove or tickle it with a feather duster.

I seem to remember reading something Lee wrote that they've doubled the bandwidth of the stream to give better pictures.

The good news about this week-end is that the teams below us have just about zilch prospect of getting a point- any of them. The bad news is if we lose chances are we'll be in a group at the bottom with a gap opening up ahead of us. This game has 0-0 all over it.

Gomaa back for second trial.

10 out of 10 to the Mods for having posted the thread- shows sensitivity and openness over and above the call of duty. Nobody has agreed with Vinjay and there seems to be no apetite to debate the points he raised. The ensuing debate has been about whether to let him back on. There is nothing new in Vinjay's rant we hadn't heard before from him apart from Dunny joining the axis of evil. Let him back on by all means- he'll be banned again within a week.

Manc supporters' view of the Rovers game. Posted it to ask, they were drinking what at 11.30am in the Fernhurst???

'drog you have me rolling about laughing here. That's the best pretentious self-justification you've come up with yet. Come on man, in footballing opinions you are no more right nor wrong than the rest of us. Everything else you write is cobblers.

I did my pennance in the Dowie thread already. I also wrote: "This is not a Hughes out rant. He is a big improvement over Souness who did supinely lose games 0-4 (Brum and Liverpool). More to the point, Rovers beat Pompey- very unlikely a Souness-led Rovers would have won that one. " Rovers could easily have rolled over and died against the Mancs last Saturday and didn't and I am quietly confident that Spuds this Sunday will bew a right old scrap if nothing else judging by the list of absentees we have going into it. Incidentally, has Sparky received his sainthood for keeping us up that season?

Something has happened this evening which has never happened before in all my years of watching football. There is a player in the England players list whom I had to look up to find out who on earth he is. Step forwards (or not) Ben Foster. Apparently he is not even first choice for Manc reserves and got displaced at Watford when Rovers sent Richard Lee back. And we kid ourselves England might win something one day?!?

Russia have won in macedonia and so have pushed England down into 3rd in the Group. Croatia are impressively winning in Israel so are opening a points and goal difference gap at the top but if Israel recover Croatia will remain top and England will be down to 4th. The only interesting question about England is when will McLaren get fired? I will be very surprised if the Dutch don't run is ragged later this evening.

True- he went on 19 July which is factually in the 2006/7 season. Did the bookies pay out though?

Denise Hendry awarded damages for botched operation.

I thought in the first half against the Mancs there were a couple of real flashes of menace from Nonda. It must be beginning to bug him that he has only scored once so far but I think there is enough there to suggest that he is at least capable of a purple patch of performances for Rovers even if long term excellence might be illusory. Looks like we are going to get him anyway. John Williams in the LET: "We have an option to buy him. It's a very similar to the deal we agreed with Rangers for Zurab. "Mark likes him, and if he feels he wants to keep him then the only thing that would stop a deal from happening is Nonda himself." If it is so similar that the price is around £500K, we've got a bargain!

The issue this season compared with last is that when we are playing well we zip the ball around. In contrast, our passing has been more ponderous this time round. Interesting to read that the Reserves last night passed the ball better than the first team has been doing. Of course it could be that our Premiership opponents have simply worked us out but we have two strikers relatively unused to the Premiership game. I get the feeling that M and N haven't yet sussed out where to make the space or time their runs and as a result there are few options for midfield players to pass forwards making everything look much more static. This could be evidenced by our goal scoring rates. In the Prem, we are averaging under a goal a game whereas in the UEFA we are averaging over 2 goals a game and we haven't been playing FC Numpty teams in the UEFA either. Of course Bellamy was such a threat last season that oppositions tended to deploy two men against him wherever he was on the park which opened up the opportunities for everybody else. In fairness to Benni, he has hurt teams when he has turned his man on a number of occasions but the opposition don't have to cover explosive runs from deep in the way they had to with Bellars. Notwithstanding Bellamy's pace, I wouldn't be surprised if man for man the current squad isn't quicker overall than last year's- we're just not playing at the same tempo.

...and I used to think Charlton were a model of a well run football club!

Charlton have appointed Les Reed as their new coach. They persevered with Curbishley for 15 years, let Dowie spend £11.2m in the summer, gave him 12 weeks of the new season, fire him and appoint his deputy as his successor. Odd.

Consider yourself awarded the Newell Booby Prize.

No Tugay's there as cover for when Beckham gets too old.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, we will go in for Dunn and he will subject to the mother of all medicals. If he passes it, I'm sure everybody will be absolutely delighted. Sadly, its a big IF.

Mirror reporting that Brum are selling Upson and Dunn in January.

Two pieces of speculation on my part- Has the Crystal Palace Court case been settled? That might have thrown up some injudicious remarks by Dowie which were leaving Charlton looking down Simon Jordan's gun barrel metaphorically speaking. The Charlton board probably has a different composition now to the one which slumbered through donkey's years of Curbishley. The Spanish investors who are putting seriously big money into expanding the Valley to over 40,000 capacity are probably getting a bit nervous about the stats for Championship crowds. At the end of the day, any club that has a horrible end of season run in the preceding season usually ends up relegation fodder the next season. I thought Charlton's close season transfer activity looked pretty decent and I was a fan of Dowie as a Manager but it could just be that extremely dire performance from Charlton v Rovers at the end of last season in Curbs' send-off game (close to the worst performance by any Prem team I've seen) simply underlined the total lack of class in the Valley playing staff Dowie inherited. Of course by a strange coincidence, the Charlton v Rovers tickets went on sale today. We all know the script all too well....

Lasted fewer games than Curbishley had years. Was my marginal preference for the Ewood job last time round. Good job the Board made the choice and not me!

Manchester Evening News' verdict Just a shame that Benni's snap shot in the 95th minute was straight at van der saar rather than past him!