I saw some of their 3-1 win over Schalke. Nancy looked very slick and won despite having a ref who was clearly biased towards the Germans as the 6-1 card count against Nancy showed. IMO, these guys are the biggest threat in our Group and Rovers are fortunate not to be travelling away to them.

On Thursday, we welcome the Swiss team from the town that speaks German with the airport in France. Rovers will be playing in red as the opponents are in their home strip of red and blue stripes which used to be red and blue halves (very QEGS). This is our second match of four in the Group Stage but a win for Rovers and the right result elsewhere can achieve qualification for the next round from this game! So all is clear and logical. Basel are now the big club of Swiss football as eleven Championships and seven Cup wins more or less all within the last 50 years indicate. Their St Jakob Park Stadium holds just over 30,000 but is being increased to 40,000+ for the European Nations Cup Finals so for England-followers this game is about as close to that event as we are likely to get. Basel kicked off this season with two very impressive home gates of 0. The 'drog wrote long diatribes about forming Switzerland United, SG194 said it was disgusting but surprisingly nobody blamed the ticket prices as there weren't any. You see Basel's 59 match home unbeaten run came to a crushing end when FC Zurich scored in the last minute of the last game to secure the 2005/6 Swiss Championship away at Basel who would otherwise have been Champions themselves. The ever-sporting FCB (Football Club Basel) fans took the defeat in good grace except for a few thousand who ran onto the pitch to break-up Zurich's celebration. They let off rockets directed at Zurich players missing from a few feet away, got into general direct physical confrontation with opposition players with the predictable results outcome of boozed-up morons being kicked senseless by professional athletes having to fight for their lives and generally entered into the spirit of celebrating Zurich's title achievement (not). A SFR80,000 fine and two "ghost" matches later and Basel are in pretty sorry shape having played 11 won 5 drawn 1 lost 5 so far in the Swiss Super League. That leaves them stranded in mid-table way off the pace of the top three. An away trip to table-topping Grasshoppers today could have got them acclimatised to playing blue and white halves but a cunning piece of UEFA chicanery means the home side plays in the away strip if the kits clash so they won't even have that advantage over us. So to the Basel team. They are managed by Christian Gross who looked completely at home in his brief unhappy sojourn at White Hart Lane and didn't win anything whilst the Rovers did!!! Yes, the Manager is the only Basel player I'd ever heard of and I'll be quite happy for it to stay that way come Friday morning. For novelty value, there is an Australian male stripper who plays for them which should get the girlies snapping up the Rovers' cheap ticket offer. This is the first European game for Rovers in this campaign against a team not top of their league. Neither were Trelleborgs, Lyons, Gencler, Legia, Spartak etc when we played them either but Rosenborg were top of the Norwegian League when Mike Newell wrote himself into the CL record books. Yes, I guess this one comes with a major Euro banana skin warning.

An early offering but the Grauniad not only wrote about French football but profiled our December opponents. The game against Nancy could be one of the most attractive footballing encounters of the season and may well be the decider for Group top spot. I certainly hope that qualification from the Group stage is wrapped up before we face them.

Debate on the fall in Serie A attendances. Serie A average now barely half that of the Premiership despite four clubs plying their trade in 60,000+ capacity stadiums (five if Turin play in the Alpe) and Fiorentina still pulling 40,000+. The German example has to be the way to go but given the boozed up moron problem I cannot see alcohol being allowed within view of the pitch in England any time soon. Interesting to note that nobody, but nobody anywhere near a top league in Europe has to my knowledge gone down the route of combining clubs to achieve success unless the creation of PSG can be claimed as such. Of course, in England, we have the notable achievements of Dagenham and Redbridge and Rushden and Diamonds, one of whom might build enough tradition to make it into the Premiership for the 2107/8 season.....

Well said Colin. Back to the Gate Debate and Waddle has waded in with a typically misinformed opinion. From what I have seen of the Premiership this season, the number of entertaining games has increased compared with last season which contained a lot of truly dire encounters. If Waddle wants to finger a boring club, he should look at Bolton and clubs with small gates should highlight Watford.

I hope Sparky did and runs the tape in the dressing room at Upton Park round about 3.45 on Sunday.

Going back in time, David Mail was a truly reliable penalty taker. I don't think he ever missed one. Shearer was awesome except when up against Grobelaar who saved every penalty Shearer ever took against him (Liverpool and Southampton). We had one miserable season in the '80s when I remember we missed 10 penalties including a truly horrible effort at the Goldstone Ground which nearly ended in the road behind the open end. The huge former City keeper was in the net (cannot his name at the moment- was it Joe Corrigan?) and Garner slightly over-compensated to get the ball past him from the quagmire they'd had to measure up to repaint the penalty spot.

This will either be a thumping win for Rovers totally demoralising the WHammers or we'll get beaten. We have the forwards to do the damage but without Savage I think the midfield won't have enough posession to make things happen and the West Ham midfield and forwards will discover there is fun inlife after all. West Ham 3 Rovers 1- we'll need to get a two goal cushion to avoid defeat.

Obviously I will be shot at dawn for this: 1. From a full strength squad; Brad, Emerton, Nelsen, Reid, Benni would be a pretty unbeatable combination for speed, resilience, creativity and fitness. The non-contact aspect of 5 aside would make Sav useless. 2. Benni (goal every other game), Bentley and Emerton (great improvements), Ooijer and Zura (looking such a class central defensive partnership now that nobody is bewailing the absence of Todd or Nelsen). Savage has played some of the most effective games since we signed him and Tugay is enjoying his fourth or fifth Indian summer. On the downside, MGP has been off the boil and there has to be a nagging worry about Neill at left back. 3. Opening fixtures of Pompey away, Everton home, Chelsea home didn't look too tough on paper but look where those three are in the table now. Add to that a central defence finding its bearings and four new strikers so it is not surprising it took a bit to get into our stride. The reality is that Rovers have been putting in top 6 performances now for 18 months- we had to be that good to get ourselves up from relegation Souey soup to mid-table safety at the end of Hughes' first season so current form is more a case of normal service resumed. 4. ProZone is perfect and Mark Hughes and backroom team are nearly perfect. 5. Benni/Nando starting with Roberts coming on from the bench to be a superior version of Kuqi (but without the goals so far) seems to be Sparky's preference and working pretty well. Jeffers has looked promising when given a go.

Mr jansenpresty is willing to take on all comers' bets that Savage will be playing on Sunday. Any takers?

I agree with your first paragraph - it is really sad that these people are associating themselves with the Rovers when previous ventures into Europe by the club have not been blighted. As for the white trailer trash bit - does the colour of the skin have any relevance? Why use that Americanism in this context?

Calm down- Rovers played well and dominated for long periods. The two penalties were weak efforts though.

The Observer and Guardian bloggers join in the Rovers' gate debate.

I think we should all back Benni. Racism is unpleasant and unnecessary and at the end of the day hurts clubs' attendances.

How come the Bolton media are all excited about this fixture and the low prices and the Blackburn media are ignoring it? There will be infiltration all over by Notlobers because of the LT not giving it the push they should have done early enough. I cannot see us winning this one. Rovers 1 Bolton 3 and Anelka finds his form.

I don't think there is the same passion about following football in France and Switzerland as you will find in the UK, Poland and the Netherlands. Marseille has a fanatical following who travel but you don't see mass movements to away games in France and Switzerland in the way you get the feeling that half the country is on the move on Saturdays in England. Anyway, a warm welcome to anyone from Basel or Nancy.

Excellent result from a very good performance. The way the Polish lads are coming on here saying how we were lucky just shows the gulf in class between Polish football and the Prem is so great that they cannot see it. From my perspective, Rovers were always in control of that game and capable of stepping up a gear which is what Hughes got the lads to do in the second half but even then we had a huge amount in reserve. The Poles had some good players (have to to be top of their league- I liked the play of their winger) but never really threatened and pressed us in the way Premiership opposition does. MGP is beginning to become a major weak link for us. When Bert floated that cross to him in acres of space inside the box (the Polish defending positioning was pretty poor all game- sure the big boys can head and tackle but any invention from Rovers and they were lost), I was certain he would score. If he cannot put those away reliably, I think it is time for Gally to get a run or go with three forwards exploiting Benny's willingness to drop deep or go wide. Benny was pretty quiet by his standards but Nonda was good. Unfortunately I didn't see anything of Roberts as the signal failed in the 70th minute but it looked like his additional strength was needed against the Wisla brutes at the back. It was a nailed on penalty when Neill got body checked in the first half by the way. Channel 5 were awful. Hodgson didn't have a clue what he was talking about- he didn't even know the names of the Rovers' players. I really got the feeling of "let's get this out of the way so the Spuds and Newcastle can provide the real games" attitude pervading the whole procedings. It is looking very good for qualification. The Basle-Feyernoord draw is great news as a win against either of them or draws against both pretty well assures us of third place. However, the Group is opening up nicely for us to go for top spot and a relatively easy draw in the third round knock out when we would get a third place team from one of the other groups with second leg at Ewood. In terms of UEFA coefficients, the wins against Salzburg and Wisla combined with the extremely strong showing by all the Premiership sides in Europe so far this season will be moving us up the rankings dramatically already if we qualify for Europe again in the coming seasons.

Re the comment that the special offers cannot afford to last, next summer the TV pot jumps by 50%+ and if John Williams does his stuff on the Premier League, there will be a shift of distribution towards the smaller clubs as well. Rovers probably can and WILL extend these cheaper ticket offers IF the Blackburn public responds. The Bolton game is a critical test. If there is a significvant upturn of home support, everyone who says price is a key issue will be proved right. If not, then why should Rovers cut the prices?

Excellent preview- who from Rovers is going to do one in Polish? If we play like we did at Liverpool, Rovers should be OK. Even so, the long awaited away win might not be here just yet. Wisla 1 Rovers 1

Ryan Nelsen amongst the current Rovers for academic achievement. Brad always comes over as a very intelligent guy.

Feeling rather disappointed. The prospect of having a load of pet hates all rolled up into one BIG CLUB package disintegrating is not altogether appealing. Would prefer Brum to gently subside rather than fall to pieces so the loathesome Bruce can be desposed of in a protracted will they fire him/won't they agony. The perfect end for anonymous non-entities.

Loftus Road before being rebuilt was something else. Open stand, zero facilities, ground a sticky bog of cloying London clay. Altogether now: "Rochdale's ground is better than this." Selhurst Park is a particular dump even though geographically it is the closest ground to our home in London after Fulham/Chelsea.

An interesting piece on how football has failed to attract a large part of 8% of the British population.

This will be an interesting one to watch. A totally realistic scenario at Christmas could be Rovers, Newcastle and Liverpool all top half, outside the first four but within a decent run of results of making a CL berth. In those circumstances, Rovers would be far better served with Lucas rotting in the reserves rather than crucially strengthening an opponent also chasing the £10m CL pot.

Well said Fife! The "what's that?" factor of the dingles in 2nd place is only surpassed by the pleasure of seeing BIG CLUB slithering down the table. Fancy the Baggies will be a good side now they have got rid of Robson. Mowbray certainly buried their away day hoodoo in style yesterday. I guess the M65 will get a bit busy when there are the Bumley v PNE play-off games.