Roberts might have been "sussed" by the Prem opposition but I doubt Sparky would pick a poor forward. If he doesn't come good pdq and perhaps irrespective of his own form, he'll be watching Benni and Nonda from the bench. John, Dunn is in the last year of his contract so he can sign a pre-contract agreement with Rovers so he is metaphysically our's now perhaps. The only time Brum come into it is if we need to deal to get him out of St Andrews on Jan 1.

Not as ecstatic as a WHammer but if you look at it this way: Forwards Last season: Bellamy, Pongolle, Dickov, Kuqi with Johnson one for the future and Bentley if needed This season: Benni, Nonda, Roberts, Jeffers with Gally and Derbyshire for the future and Bentley if needed Midfied No change apart from Emerton being now only an emmergency option and Peter and Gally realistic covering options Defence Last season: Nelsen, Zura, Todd, Neill, Gray, Matteo, Amo, Vratty and a bunch of youngsters and the Axe This season: Nelsen, Zura, Ooijers, Todd, Gray, Neill, Emerton, Matteo and a bunch of youngsters and the Axe Keeper Added Jason Brown who looks like serious competition for Brad's place And we made a £2m profit! Compared with the wholesale personnel changes we might have faced, there is good continuity with the squad which came 6th and has reached two Cup semi-finals in two years and a general strengthening all round. In previous seasons, we would not have hung onto Savage, Nelsen, Neill, Emerton, Reid and MGP and to have all six of them at Ewood at the start of September is a major achievement by the Rovers management team. The crunch question is how we cope with losing the unique talent/threat that is Bellamy. I do expect Rovers to make a significant move in the market in January and that Dunn will be a Rover again if he proves himself this season.

James No 7 got there first. I am astonished that after years and years of top clubs having four international-class strikers, Rovers supporters have still not cottoned-on. Nonda is a risk but presumably the club spent enough time hanging around Roma to be impressed that his injuries are behind him. Will be interesting to see who will make the bigger impression in the Prem this season- Nonda or Mido. There's a decent chance we might have got the better end of the protracted Mido deal after all.

Henry Winter's Telegraph report is very upbeat about Rovers' performance.

First chance to see thyat incident. An absolutely sickening premeditated attack. After the Shanghai and Summerbee incidents, Thatcher should effectively be taken out of football for a very long time. What was the linesman on that side doing? - if I were Gallagher I'd be very angry that my lino missed that.

Let's not kid ourselves- we've drawn a very tough one in Salzburg.

Some worrying signs: Chelsea were there for the taking but we didn't have the nouse to do it. Ooijer oh dear- Let's hope this is Emo v Wolves in reverse. He was ripped apart today. MGP should have come back from his hols with all the positive sides to his game honed and having worked out how to deal with a heavy challenge. That's nought out of two- can we have Pedersen back and send Gamst back to the shirt printer in the sky? Reid has gone back 12 months as well. Roberts- we've got the Baggies' one rather than the Latics' Benni- needs introducing to the opposition's penalty area but he can play. A winning big ugly battle coming up at Bramall Lane if sanity is to be retained. Yet again we are going into a European campaign in terrble shape. For Rovers, if Cisse hadn't broken another leg is yet another great what might have been. PS We are a soft touch for refs- bookings, penalties, sending offs- they can do what they like against us and do. Sparky should bring Todd on to nut the next one that gives a bad decision against us- solve two problems at once.

FIFA have threatened FIGC with expulsion if Juve continue their case through the Civil Courts. Apparently there is an international agreement that associations cannot be subject to Civil cases in matters of sporting jurisdiction. This could get interesting. Juve case due in the Civil Courts on September 1st. If there is any verdict other than summary dismissal, the Italian season will be further delayed.

Good read chaps! You're all wrong. or maybe not We are getting a lot of posession but not using it anywhere nearly as well as last season. Don't know whether there is lack of confidence in the out ball to Roberts/Benni as opposed to Bellamy or the injuries have disjointed us more than they should have done. Everton's win at Spuds yesterday puts Wednesday in a better context. That said, our subs were dire and their's were not. Another five signing days until the window closes...

Pompey away and Everton at home yielded one point last season as well. By that logic we've got to beat Chelsea.... This season hangs on injuries and suspensions. By that criteria, we haven't started well.

Very happy about this. Was one of the players I knew little about before who caught my eye in Germany. Yes the price is steep but we got Benny and Roberts on steals and boy do we need him after the last two defensive "performances". Probably the first of at least three signings by 31 August- four if Neill goes.

It will be a cracking match and a result of not much use to either side. 1-1

Rovers 2 Everton 1 Just got in!

brfcs should do them for copyright infringement then!

'Arry with his £30m, Villa / O'Neill rebuffed by Celtic, Rovers with Ooijer, Rovers with Nelsen, Reid, Gamst, Gray and now Emerton- The common thread is that short of specific escape clauses, clubs everywhere have smartened up on hanging onto players and the supply isn't there in the market short of splashing sums like £5.5m for Heskey and £18.6m for Carrick. Emo is not my favourite player but boy, have we progressed since we hid in the cellars waiting for a Souness team sheet? Or even worse, a line-up including Peacock, Ward, Dailly, and other such lummaries of the Kidd era. Quite simply, there was no guarrantee we'd get a player at least as good as Bert so absent a realistic offer from Boro, he was going to sit out his contract. So sensible chap took a small pay rise and security and has thrown his lot back in with the Rovers. Pragmatism all round.

Chesh will write a contract for one of the corgies to come and pee on your front garden. Is that royal enough?

TheOlympic Committee threw out Juve'sappeal. In reality it was an attempt at reconciliation between Juve and the prosecutors who thankfully wouldn't budge an inch. Juve's grounds are that they want the same punishment as the other clubs. They are considering their options at a Board meeting on Monday. This includes yet another level of Sports Tribunal appeal and civil action in the Courts. Their latest quarterly turnover figures showed a 40% decline and that is before they have started the new season. Meantime, Reginna have suffered a 15 points deduction and President banning and Arezzo have lost points and had key people banned in Serie B. All the other punished clubs are off to the Olympic Committee on appeal.

Poor little rich 'Arry. No doubt Hughes will be drumming into our walking wounded that we couldn't be playing Pompey at a better time. Their Manager has just told half the team that he tried to get better players than them and failed and the he's going to carry on trying to get new signings. There are enough solidly good players around who would have been available at £3m (£5m to a money bags) that 'Arry could have transformed Pompey into a real threat for a UEFA place with £30m. Perhaps Gaydamuk just wanted £10m show ponies for his cash? As it is, Pompey look like relegation possibles with that current squad. And we all know Rovers' fallibilities against those (even Sparky's teams) :ph34r:

Fife, I was too young to see it but, I was brought up on tales of Douglas, Dobing, Dougan, Vernon and McLeod as the best forward line Rovers had put out. Mind you Ferguson, McEvoy, Pickering, Douglas and Herrison were the ones that immortalised themselves against Spurs and West Ham.

Simple economics lads. Boro bid £3m, bye bye Bert Boro bid £800K, bye bye Boro Re-signing Enerton at least will keep the boo boys on their usual target and off MGP, Bentley, Kuqi, Jeffers or whoever else they need to find to deprecate. Hughes is right- give the ball to Emo and he and the ball usually end up deep in the opposition half. He didn't say anything about great distribution, dangerous crosses, heading ability, eye for goal, tackling, football brain... Rather suggests that Sparky is going to do his utmost to turn Emo's natural athleticism into a footballer but he's not sticking his neck out on this one just as he won't have guarranteed first team starts although with the current injury list, Bert will be playing centre back alongside Neill on Saturday.

The Sun says- 1. Chelsea (same as last year) 2. Manchester United (same as last year) 3. Liverpool (same as last year) 4. Arsenal (same as last year) 5. Spurs (same as last year) 6. Newcastle (lets boot little Rovers out) 7. West Ham Combined with the most cloyingly supportive comments about those clubs. Still think it has nothing to do with readership numbers?

The last two pages have made extremely pleasant and very amusing reading. Well done Rovers and Nelsen. Where's Peter Cucumber to write a song for 'Arry on Saturday? If nothing original comes up, could always sing loadsoplayers to the (obscenely loathesome but funny when the Blackburn End waved its credit cards at the opposition) loadsomoney chant we had in the early '90s! 'Arry, 'Arry, who've you signed?

The Sun preview was worse thyan pathetic. Driven by readership numbers. Re Charlton, JFH and Carson are very good signings and Traore and Faye are not players I'd want to see signed by Rovers but are not that bad either in terms of adding real competition for places in an already reasonable squad.

Fife's suggestions are all excellent. I am sceptical that there is any formula for a salary cap that would work practically that wouldn't harm the Rovers. More than 50% of the salary cap proposals I've seen would cripple our club's ability to compete in the PL. The most likely and most sensible suggestion will be to use the increase in TV monies next summer to shift the financial balance significantly towards the non-CL clubs in the EPL. Most other ideas are only cosmetic in comparison. The top English division has survived periods of domination by one club before. The emergence of a clique of four that depends for its financial survival on coming in the top 4 is new and I think far more damaging to the EPL as a spectacle. Three or four seasons ago, Alan Green said in a commentary for something like Charlton v Boro in late November; "This is a cracking match and I haven't seen a bad Premiership game yet this season." That level of entertainment has fallen away terribly in the intervening period. Yes, I am very excited about the start of the new season but there are far too many Prem games you won't get me any where near a TV to watch unless there is a massive change in attitude by several clubs' management. Thankfully after playing the most unwatchable football Rovers heve ever played in my life time during the last two years of Souness, Rovers have reverted to being very good to watch again. I agree that Spurs v Rovers was the best pure football spectacle of any game in the Prem last season and for sheer unbridled enjoyment, Rovers v Mancs at Ewood was unbeatable.