Sparky on the Hamburg game: http://www.lancashireeveningtelegraph.co.u...on_progress.php MGP on the Hamburg game: http://www.lancashireeveningtelegraph.co.u...s_influence.php

Perhaps Christmas is coming early. Then again regardless of being crocked, its taken DD three and a half years to fall out with Steve Bruce- I don't think it would take three and a half minutes for most of us to tell him what we think of him and his crackpot club. From a Rovers' perspective, far better to see Dunny prove his fitness, sign a January 2 pre-contract agreement and winkle him out of Brum for a nominal sum for the second half of the season. Seeing Rovers turning up to drive Dunny home in the next five weeks is bound to be too emotional an experience for Golds/Sullivan/Brady/Bruce and likely cost us a couple of million at least.

You forgot their impressive defense.

According to the BBC, there is another level of sporting appeal to go to before the clubs turn to the Regional Courts which a few years ago over-turned a previous match fixing relegation penalty leading to Serie A expanding to 20 clubs! http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/europe/5216866.stm With Juve, Lazio and Fiorentina all appealing their FIGC-imposed European bans, who knows which club now qualifies for what? UEFA must be close to throwing the Italians out sine die which would be cruel on Inter.

This report is not altogether surprising: http://breakingnews.iol.ie/sport/story.asp...276938&t=soccer UEFA banned Marseille for match fixing 13 years ago and are looking at that precedent when they consider the FICG's nomination of AC Milan for the Champions League. What is not in doubt is that AC are guilty- punishments are duly being administered following both a hearing and the appeal and as such UEFA are within their rights to say they are not wanted in their competition. Even worse, Galliano's ban has only been reduced by three months but because its not effective yet, up he has popped today saying all kinds of derogatory things about Real Madrid and declaring war over the Kaka transfer bid. In England, he'd be hauled up for disrepute had he said a tiny fraction of the stuff he mouthed off this morning. All in all, the attempt at sporting justice by the Italians looks discredited/questionable at best or a down right sham at worst. What new evidence was presented to the Appeals Hearing? How was it so decisive in changing the sentences? Why did such new evidence only come to light at the Appeal? ALL of football deserves to know. Italian football had the opportunity to draw a line under its dirty past and the Appeal judgement completely funked it. I hope the Civil Court Appeals are slow, the Criminal Court hearings unveil new evidence of naughtiness that the Sports World will want punishing and that the Sporting Tribunals into Reggina and another as yet un-named club, plus the separate Messina, Sienna and three other smaller clubs all go to protracted appeal. Far from starting four weeks late in September, the legal mess the Sports Tribunal has now put itself into could well drag out the start of the Serie A/B seasons for months- after all nobody will know what division all the clubs are in until the last judgement is delivered.

If anyone doubts the coming crisis for the England national team, how many of the lengthy lists of names here, http://www.rovers.premiumtv.co.uk/page/New...~871913,00.html qualify for England? I doubt Rovers are by any means the worst Academy in the Premiership in this regard.

To repeat, there are three transfer markets: 1) Willing buyer, reluctant seller, player contract >2 years. Pennant at £6.2m, Boumsong at £8m, Duff at £17m, Rio at £29m etc 2) Willing buyer, confused seller, player contract of 1 year. Duff at £5m+ lots of bits, McCarthy at £1.8m (we hope) etc. 3) Bosman To equate 2) to 1), multiply by at least 2. If we get £2.5m for Bert, we will have done very well. If Lucas forces our hand, it will be a miracle if we get £3m for him. Back to BIG CLUB, BIG MOUTH has been talking again. http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,,1830135,00.html So everything football is now measured in Heskeys! What was Sullivan doing allowing super manager Bruce let Heskey get overweight? What is noteworthy from that article is the way BIG CLUB are struggling to spend their transfer budget with players unwilling to go from the bench at low-ranking Premiership clubs to the Championship. Makes the fear of relegation even greater. Then again, perhaps the personalities of Gold, Sullivan, Brady and Bruce are the repellant. I think the suggestion made by somebody (1864?) that Dunn has an understanding that he'll come to Rovers in January could be the most accurate observation made yet on the subject. With all this cash flowing in, Brum will fight like crazy to keep him if we bid now. Whereas in January, we can sign a pre-contract agreement with Dunn coming a free agent next summer and a relatively small fee should prise him away for the remaining few months of his Brum contract. By that time, we will see if he has remained fit and survived the clogging he'll get in the fizzy pop league. It will also give him a platform to parade his talents the way the Rovers' time in the wilderness did when he was a youngster.

So they've rigged it for Milan to stay in the CL!

Liverpool are reported to have had a £6.2M offer accepted.

So Juve and Fiorentina go into next season's Champs League and AC go into the UEFA if I read that correctly??? Will UEFA agree? As for Juve keeping two blatantly rigged Scudettos, have the Italians no shame? Inter fans will be furious. Carry on fixing lads. Unfortunately, this looks like it could be bad news for Rovers- will be more difficult to keep Neill and the trickle down will stop/be reversed. Have to say the Mancs have missed out big time and Real and Barca are the real winners in this Italian farce. Of course the Italian League will be delayed- they haven't started on the likes of Reggina, Sienna and Messina yet. And what about all the allegations going back to 2001?

Don't you need to add Sergio Peter to the list?

Liverpool have bid £3.5m for Pennant who is not for sale but will sell him for a higher bid according to Karren Brady. At this rate, Liverpool will have more jailbirds on the pitch than in the stands. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/t...ity/5213422.stm

Sorry to spoil the general high spirits but the Mirror report Arsenal taking a close look at Ryan Nelsen as the Sol Campbell replacement. That is the one transfer this summer which could really crock us.

UEFA have told the English game that the way we appoint referees opens us up to corruption: http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,,1828196,00.html Personally, I feel the FA is the most curruptible of England's footballing bodies being an arcane mix of blazers and the professional game. I'd only want the refereeing set-up changed if the Burns Report were implemented in full. As it is, having the FA, Prem and League all involved makes it a little bit more difficult for a bad apple from anyone of those organisations to turn the whole barrel. As far my personal opinion, I'll be convinced the English refereeing system is not bent when I start seeing unbiased decisions at Old Trafford.

I always enjoy reading this sort of thread than the infantile puerile (NcCarthy's better than Mido) stuff which populates 75% of the transfer thread. Great to get the first hand experiences of people who were there. From seeing snatches of the game live, my impressions were: - Hamburg were not mucking about - Hamburg were playing at very close to full strength at the start - Rovers did not look pre-season rusty until the subs started - Agathe didn't convince as a full back or wing back Overall, I think it is excellent that Rovers have got four continental top league opponents, two of which are Champs League clubs and one went a long way in the UEFA last season. The portents are there for Rovers to be better prepared than most come the start of the season. Makes a change from stuffing non-entitities 10-0 in the Souness days.

My feelings exactly neekoy. As for the £5m fee, it is a sign that Newcastle are under such financial pressure that they have had to do a deal which almost certainly has massive contingent performance payments attached. Two explanations of why Chelsea got rid here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtm...25/sfnche25.xml The funny thing is that the reporter seems to have forgotten that Blackburn Rovers play in England.

A general overview on the continuing impact on Italian football for some time to come: http://www.footballingworld.com/index.php?..._from=&ucat=84& The financial impact begins to be assessed: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/07/23/business/tv24.php

Whilst Newcastle were triumping in Lillestrom in the Intertoontoon (poor show by our Norwegian friends I thought), Villarreal were biting the dust againstr SK Maribor. For Rovers, that is one less team seeded above us in the UEFA whilst it might mean that it will make a move by Rovers for Valencia a more attractive proposition for all concerned.

I think it has been pretty well substantiated that Spuds had gone on to offer significantly more than £5m. Somehow, I don't think Abramovich/Kenyon were running a Toon Philanthropic Society when it came to flogging off Duffer. Anyway, Michael Owen won't even have his cruciate ligament operation until September as he has to wait for the cartilege operation swelling to go down and fully heal before he can go under the knife again.

Thought he looked promising today- better than I could remember him playing at Wigan and in a physical opening to the "friendly", it was good to see a Champs League defence not really fancying taking him on. Much better control than Shefki- set up MGP's lovely strike nicely. If JR scores more than 7 Prem goals in 33 appearances (including subs), he'll be an improvement on the Kuqimonster.

Pretty encouraging- it was Hamburg's 5th pre-season game and they had all their World Cup players back plus new signing Kompany. Matteo conceded a free kick within a minute of coming on and Hamburg struck the post from the resulting corner. Obviously we are without Neill and Nelsen at the moment but defense will need deepening and strengthening. Jon Douglas seemed to do well after he came on. Rover6 will be delighted to note.

How extremely prescient of you. Micky Gray was replaced by McEveley a minute before Hamburg equalised.

There seemsto be a head of steam building behind reports that Juve's 30 points penalty for next season will be reduced but that AC's penalty will be increased. In a further blow to Italian "big clubs", the FIGC voted to bring in collective bargaining for Serie A clubs for 2007/8 thus ending the ability of individual clubs to negotiate their own deals and favourable coverage. This looks like a £50m+ hit to Juve and counting...

Given a choice between Liverpool, Spuds and Newcastle next season, any sane footballer would chose Newcastle of course. Looks like Fat Freddie is banking 2007/8's TV money early if he is going to spend substantially more after splashing the £10m on Duff.

The Appeals verdict will be delivered on Tuesday. Both Lazio and Fiorentina have stated they are going to the Civil Courts to contest the verdict so they seem to be pretty cerain about the outcome! Meantime, a new Sporting Tribunal is convening in Naples to hear the case of Reggina's use of the "Moggi Method" in seven games over the last two seasons. With still five more named clubs being investigated and one more under suspicion, quite where is all this ending up? Not directly related but Reggio di Calabria has one scary airport to fly into. On my last (and it will be the last given the choice) flight there, I was enormously grateful to the A319's fly-by-wire system. First the captain stalled us so the engines went full power with a big kick in the back treating us to a roaring fly between two hills then we had an aborted landing on the dinky little runway. Sure Reggio is notorious for wind shere and sudden tail winds off the mountains but it turned out the Captain was handed over by Catania to Reggiana... only Reggiana had forgotten to answer. So we were powered down, under carriage down and wing flap extensions forgotten about as the Captain was yelling at Reggiana Control Tower for clearance half way through final approach. Relegation to C2 would seem the least appropriate verdict...