Sullivan's going to bomb a load of players out of BIG CLUB. What a wonderful man motivator he is- I wonder how many agents got on the phone the moment they saw that little gem?

gumboots has posted the most sensible contribution to this thread. 1) Scholes is a player with impared vision, not a scout. 2) MGP isn't the finished article but he is a lot better than most give him credit for. If you watch the Bellamy goal from all angles, that pass from MGP really was eye of the needle perfection. 3) Has anyone got Duff's goals scored and assists in his best season compared with MGP's for this season? 4) If Duff came back, this board would be full of folks moaning about him. He isn't the player we sold sadly- if he were, he'd still be one of the gems of the Premiership. 5) jim and dillo are right- MGP is a character footballer who fans love and follow. Selling him would damage us. 6) He's not for sale and nobody has offered for him so what's the big deal?

MGP contributes a great deal more to Rovers' general play than many give him credit for. The pass he played Bellamy in with for Rovers' third against Boro was absolutely world class. He dinked a ball going across him first time through a narrow angle between two Boro players at different distances away from him to find Bellamy on side and played exactly at the right pace for Bellars run onto without breaking stride. That has got to be up there pushing for pass of the season and deserved 75% of the praise for all Bellamy's brilliance in finishing.

hughesy is selling MGP on this thread, Reid on the other thread. What are we supposed to play with? A goal mouth bricked up with used fivers?

It will be just our luck that THIS is the season the two CL-bound clubs get drawn against each other in the semi-final. I think West Ham are looking bankers to get that UEFA slot which would otherwise go to the 7th place. At least we get Intertoto if we finish 7th which barring a real blow up at the season's end is the place we are headed for at the moment.

Just got home. Unbelievable- ha ha ha Steve Bruce losing 0-7 at home. Couldn't happen to a nicer fellow or more genuine bunch of Directors. Funny how Dunny was out for the season then is playing a week later. Dunn did us a huge favour when he convinced Bruce how good Tiny was. I am trying to be good mannered and magnanimous about tonight's result but I can't help bursting out laughing- brilliant.

I think you are right. In fact the G14 would disintegrate before this happened. Glazer, Berlusconi and Agnelli would be in favour of a World Series as perhaps would clubs from the smaller leagues- Porto, PSV and Ajax. Whether Barca and Real could agree on anything is open to question. I doubt the French trio would do anything that was perceived as against the interests of France or so obviously "anglo-saxon". There are probably enough traditionalists at Arsenal to win the day against so long as their debt repayment remains on schedule and 19 Premiership matches are key to that. Which leaves Liverpool who will say yes, no, how much, hang on we're playing Blackburn on Sat er Friday er Sunday, er lets ask the HJC, how many hubcaps did you say we need to build the new Anfield?....

Punishments proposal. I simply do not see the G14 winning on this one and in fact I can see them taking a fearful beating. -UEFA has seven associations who have G14 members and 42 who do not. -The Polish FA has nothing to lose by taking an extremely aggressive uncompromising stance against the G14 and quite possibly a lot to gain. -A country like Poland can reasonably expect to become a footballing power at club level as their economy grows. UEFA must know that Associations like Russia, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine are as likely to produce as much future growth if not more than places like the UK and Italy where there are clear signs of football being at or beyond saturation point. -The renaiscance of Eastern European football is evident from the presence of four of the last eight clubs in UEFA coming from Russia, Bulgaria and Romania. But the G14 action is targeted at preventing any footballing power shifts. -The G14 can hardly look for support amongst the seven Associations where their clubs are based. There is no way that the Premiership is going to make life easier for the Mancs, Arsenal and Liverpool in trying to limit competition so the Football League and the rest of the FA are going to be even less supportive. So are we going to see a Kerry Packer situation in football? The G14 will undoubtedly be looking at the feasibility of a break away series but the conditions which pertained in 1970s cricket which gave Packer a partial success simply do not exist in modern football. If this does develop into a ruck, the biggest winners will be Chelsea who are in the perfect position as the world's richest club and sitting within the "establishment".

Our season and without being unduly dramatic, possibly the club's destination for the next few seasons rest on how we perform at the three clubs in the relegation positions. Fortunately, we've got the one which is truly awful first. With Hughes in charge, we should be in the right mind frame and seriously prepared. So its FA Cup-style underdog odds we are facing. More comedy capers defending and wonky throw ins and we could have a motivated Sunderland and 30,000 screaming Wearsiders to contend with. So get out there, squeeze the life out of them on the pitch and on the terraces and a clinical 2-0 would do nicely. Pressing on and improving the goal difference with a 5-0 has to be the objective but I don't see it happening unless we get into a roll of playing the sort of football we showed at Tottenham.

The Official Club announcement.

Jansenpresty- the answer is in the thread. 'drog- exiled Rovers supporters do not contribute nothing, the answer is in the thread.

They are not dodgy channels from Timbuctu. They are 100% legitimate stations which have bought the rights but whose satelite coverage also crosses the UK and from which they can derive no legitimate revenue. Have there been any UK ads in English on those channels yet? The interesting question is whether Sky is beginning to see domestic subs decline in areas around pubs showing illegal transmissions? As soon as that happens, the football clubs won't need to act as Murdoch's men will be in there sorting them out. From what I understand, illegal carriage of football is much more difficult for pubs in some places (London and the West Midlands) than others (Blackburn) becvause the local police and clubs are much tighter. Of course after two seasons of poor quality entertainment, it could be the Rovers Board are deliberately not chasing these offending pubs preferring to re-establish a loyal following before the legal chop comes. But that would be too clever by half.

Shilito, Bolton have those two games in hand so they are the only club which has 4th place in its own hands to win or lose. The other three clubs are dependant on Bolton slipping up. As for Rovers, Bolton are only one point behind, two games in hand and have a much better goal difference than us. I'd say the odds are about right. We are going to have to have a fantastic end of season run to get 4th place because at the moment we are the back markers of the four clubs in contantion. At least today's results push Newcastle further out of contention for the UEFA Cup and give the Mancs a bit more to play for when they play Bolton, Arsenal and Spurs.

Actually, got my numbers wrong- that average is 150 miles one way, so 300 miles round trip and well over 170,000 miles in total. Given I lived 210 miles from Ewood, you can see the high proportion that were home games. As for sponsoring match balls, buying season tickets etc., done all that many times.

Just read on the official site that Liverpool TURNED DOWN the offer of playing on Sunday 16 the first time Rovers offered it to them. Of course they were still in the Champions League. This is one massive exercise in Liverpool hypocrisy.

Sav misses just one game. Rather chuffed that I suggested it could be 3-2 to the Rovers. Well done jim- there's a reply to your's and Revidge's posts somewhere back in this thread. On the official thread, a certain Mr Grooby has this to say: "Does the town deserve a team as high in the league table as they've got? "Sub 19000 doesn't allow us to compete in the transfer market. When the undoubted threads start at the end of the season about "How much have we got to spend?" remember that our attendences are down so much that any rise in the league table is taking away our spending power." He also goes onto say that the attendance figure is actual bodies in the ground and that he didn't know the turnstiles broke down. On that basis, 18,681 must be the figure at 2.45 and will exclude everybody whose tickets were not scanned.

Except they might get moved for Sky to Sunday or Monday. Don't think about 2 September- there won't be a game bacause its an International week-end when England play Andora. Of course you might hit lucky and catch the third round qualifier against AC Milan in the Champions League...

Confirmed on the official site- getting the second yellow reduced his ban to one game but he remains dangling on 9 yellows and one yellow away from a two match ban. There are no appeals for yellow cards so the double yellow equals red stands. As I've said before, successfully appealing one of the yellows simply doubles his immediate suspension.

Apart from slipping a bit on goal difference, the Champs League race is as you were. But, this afternoon has done our UEFA chances a power of good with the likes of City and West Ham losing. The Wigan home fixture in two weeks' time is also a case of having UEFA qualification in our own hands. Intertoto (if we need to fall back on that) is getting closer to being secured having beaten Boro today- 15 points ahead- whilst Everton are six points and 15 goals behind with just 8 games left.

Boo, Spuds score.

Don't appeal then he's banned only for the Sunderland game.

A Boro match report Two stunning stats- we had three shots on target and scored from all three. Thinking about a similar 100% strike rate was Mr Foy- we commited 12 fouls and received 4 yellow cards) including two for Sav.

It seems the better we get, the worse the crowd becomes. How many Boro fans there today? More to the point, how many folk watching live feeds in local hostelries? Bellamy is a magician- that guy got us all three points today (McLaren was scared stiff- three centre halves against one forward for 25 minutes of XI against X?) Is there a bit of an anomaly/silver lining to Sav's unjust sending off? On one booking Sav was up for a two match ban (ten bookings). When he walked he got a one match ban for two yellows and is back to nine yellows. Or is there a rule I don't know about?

I've just looked at my list of games I've been to. Between leaving Blackburn and getting a base in Malta. I averaged 21 English games a season I averaged travelling 150 miles a game ...and did that for 28 seasons Which works out as travelling 88,000 miles watching domestic football. Just sick to death of people who live close to Ewood criticising other people for.... (I presume that you are going for a drink before the game- easy relaxed preamble to the game and you are still able to post 99 minutes before kick off)

The buttock- clenching fear of failure and emotions when you miss out are very much part of the shared experience of following a football club. Take that away from the football experience and a lot of the loyalty which saw the Mancs fill OT in the old second division would go too. UEFA are rattled judging by the speed of this response. I made a mistake, Monaco with their 5,000 crowds are not part of the G14.