Now Bolton are out of the UEFA and about to exit the FA Cup as well, I can see a titanic struggle developing between ourselves, Bolton, Arsenal and Spurs for the European places. My hunch is Bolton will come 4th and boy will that be as welcome as a wet fart to Sky, BBC, UEFA, FA,,,,etc. It would probably even be more unwelcome than us coming 4th. It would be sure to get Sam the England job of course.

This chap reckons we are goiing to finish 4th. Since when did the Welsh know anything about football?

Does anyone know whether the drummers know how to drum? Are they professionals? Are they learning? Any drummer should be able to support any rhythm as simple as that generated by a football crowd. Mind you having said that, I remember a mind blowingly complex syncopated version of "singing the blues" emerging from the Blackburn End on a few occasions in the early '80s. Incidentally, does Annie's Song get hummed any more? That used to create an ethereal atmosphere in the old Ewood. An old boy stood near me in the Darwen End Enclosure did his nut one balmy October Saturday afternoon. Nearly still weather conditions except for a few leaves doing an American Beauty (before Sam Menzies thought of filming it) along the redshale, a soporifically boring game of two inadequate forward lines and most of the 5,000 humming Annie's Song and having realised all four stands had miraculous got into unison were on at least the fifth repeat when a raucous voice exploded: "If you want to go to Church, its next door- this is supposed to be a ###### football match with a ###### football crowd singing ###### football songs for the ###### Rovers who are supposed to be playing ###### football (rising to a high pitched screech), what's ###### wrong with you lot? You all going ###### rigor mortis?

Completely agree Ricky. Anywhere between 4th and 16th is a possible finish for Rovers this season (3rd if one of the Mancs and Liverpool have a bad end of season). I think it will be very tight 4th to 11th - perhaps as little as 10 points covering those places. From what I have seen, West Ham are dangerous, Everton and Bolton effective, Arsenal still have flair but half the Prem knows how to handle them now and Rovers, Spurs, City and Charlton are in the mix whilst Wigan might continue to surprise and Roeder might prove to be the new Geordie Keegan. On current form, Wigan are losing it but there is very little to chose between the rest. I cannot enter these into dillo's spread sheet but here are the Bolton fixtures courtesy of the BBC (I think Wednesday 15 March is the 6th round date rather than West Ham in the FA Cup again): Saturday, 04 March 2006 Barclays Premiership Newcastle v Bolton, 15:00 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday, 07 March 2006 FA Cup West Ham v Bolton, 19:45 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, 11 March 2006 Barclays Premiership Bolton v West Ham, 15:00 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday, 15 March 2006 FA Cup West Ham v Bolton, 20:05 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, 18 March 2006 Barclays Premiership Bolton v Sunderland, 15:00 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, 26 March 2006 Barclays Premiership Middlesbrough v Bolton, 13:30 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, 01 April 2006 Barclays Premiership Bolton v Man Utd, 15:00 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, 09 April 2006 Barclays Premiership Liverpool v Bolton, 14:00 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, 15 April 2006 Barclays Premiership Bolton v Chelsea, 12:45 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monday, 17 April 2006 Barclays Premiership West Brom v Bolton, 20:00 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, 22 April 2006 Barclays Premiership Bolton v Charlton, 15:00 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, 29 April 2006 Barclays Premiership Tottenham v Bolton, 15:00 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, 07 May 2006 Barclays Premiership Bolton v Birmingham, 15:00

Notlob play the Whammers twice but the Whammers play Notlob once... With the odd little bugaboo sorted by a judicious edit or three that is a very useful table. Can I be a pedant and say if I were an Everton, City, Charlton or delusional Newcastle supporter (aren't they all?), I'd still have designs on 7th+ and a Europe slot. They are not that far behind and I suspect will all finish ahead of Wigan except Charlton whose fans know they will be lucky to escape relegation if they have the usual "Curbishley special" from now to the season end. Enough wishing bird flu on Robbins, my hunch is that with 4th to 7th all up for grabs between 10 clubs the Champs League hurdle will be appreciably higher this season- quite probably 65 points or more. Wigan will sink down the table.

Are Spuds that good? I don't know... but the fact I have to ask the question means they have neither convinced me the odd time I've seen them on the big screen nor have they brought Fleet Street's "finest" to paroxisms of delight -which given half of Fleet Street are Spuds followers is a bit strange, n'est-ce pas? (eh? in drogese) Are Spurs a slightly more cultured effete version of Bolton or have I missed the reason for their existence? Going for mathematical symmetry. We 0-0'd Notlob home and away and I rather suspect Sunday's televised match will be an advertisement for Sunday afternoon shopping in B&Q as a stimulating sportive social occasion.

I am absolutely delighted that I an having to reassess my view that Andy Todd was a limited player. He still works his socks off but having seen bits of the Arsenal game now, all I can say is wow!!! about some of his tackles and positioning. If Sparky's team can do this for Todd; MGP, Bert and the rest have no excuse for sub-standard offerings.

Whereas Brum's fixtures are easy? Saturday, 04 March 2006 Middlesbrough v Birmingham, 15:00 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, 11 March 2006 Birmingham v West Brom, 12:00 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, 18 March 2006 Birmingham v Tottenham, 17:15 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday, 21 March 2006 FA Cup Birmingham v Liverpool, 19:45 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, 26 March 2006 Man Utd v Birmingham, 16:00 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, 01 April 2006 Birmingham v Chelsea, 12:45 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, 08 April 2006 Wigan v Birmingham, 15:00 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, 16 April 2006 Aston Villa v Birmingham, 12:00 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday, 19 April 2006 Birmingham v Blackburn, 19:45 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, 22 April 2006 Everton v Birmingham, 15:00 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, 29 April 2006 Birmingham v Newcastle, 15:00 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, 07 May 2006 Bolton v Birmingham, 15:00

Brum v Baggies next week will go a long way to determining whether Dunn is a Rover again come the summer. If the Baggies get a win, Dunn will be on his way back.

Come on Rev- and the last five years. The Blackburn public has comprehensively shown they do not turn out when ticket prices are dropped.

I haven't seen anything of Peter yet but I do remember Duff's debut against Leicester- if he is being mentioned in the same breath as that debut performance of Duff's he is one heck of a prospect. BUT Cercle Bruge thought Peter was an arrogant piece of rubbish. AND The people talking up Peter are also the ones talking down MGP. This makes me very deeply sceptical about Peter- hope I'm wrong on that count. However, I doubt anyone can contradict me when I say that MGP is a rather limited winger but utterly exceptional goal scorer. I have seen MGP getting better and better since we signed him and I don't see any reason to think that he is incapable of improving his out field consistency and learn how to take a big whack and not disappear from a game. If/when MGP goes, this message board will be full of comments moaning: "if MGP had been where Peter received the ball, it would have been smashed into the net."

I'll keep repeating this post!

If Sparky guides us into Europe, I'd be in favour of giving the lad a rise and doubling the length of his rolling contract. That would push him into the sort of bracket where the cost of poaching Hughes would be edging towards the sort of numbers which forced Fat Freddie to delay firing Souness and using Roeder when he eventually did so. Given a choice between splashing cash they haven't got and hiring which ever "big name" Italian/German/Swede was between jobs, hopefully the Glazers would see the sense of going Italian etc. A very nice appreciation of Mark Hughes' achievements with the Rovers thus far.

"Did you cry when Speedie dived" sung with gusto to the ever-deserving Leicester fans when they eventually came up to the Prem. I can remember some cheating footballers on Match of the Day even in the days TV was steam driven (Black and white). So what's new? Anyway, Barca are another level beyond Chelski so expect the Mancs Liverpool and us to be looking upwards at an even more mega-starred Chelski next season. Could be a good thing if it encourages the rest of the Prem to raise their game.

All the answers are here including details of the National Stadium in the centre of the island. What you saw was the old Empire Stadium in Gzira which was abandonned 20+ years ago and is now the home to stray cats although Sliema Wanderers are trying to take it over as a "new" home for themselves. The Gzira Stadium saw England as World Cup Winners win 1-0 there in a European Nations qualifier in 1970. The crowd was 15% of the nation's population! Anyway with a Maltese Rover, I am trying to find out where Zura is to say hello.

Sadly there has been a real career threatening injury. Sisoko of Liverpool will probably lose his eye as a result of the collision in Benfica.

I'll see if I can look him up but as the Libyans withdrew yesterday it seems that the whole event is in some doubt.

OK they switch on the sprinklers at one end a quarter of the pitch at a time whilst the divot boys work at the other end. Then after seven minutes, they swap ends. That's what I meant by sections. A bit like football really. Perhaps the Mancs have an advantage if the water is fresh and divots were flattened seven minutes ago (or the other way round). Depends how paranoid you are.

OK- my hunch was that there will be a British clean sweep against the three Spanish clubs but that Benfica will add Liverpool to the Mancs. ... and I am absolutely certain Rovers will win in a high scoring game on Saturday. If it doesn't happen, it's your fault trueblue!

Sorry to rain on your pitch but the cheapskates Maltese TV take the games but not the half time package from Sky. So we get treated to a static camera view of the pitch at half time- all 15 minutes of it. What happens at OT is that they sprinkle the pitch by sections at HT whilst the bump flatteners and divot replacers do their stuff in the bit where its not raining. So they were watering their end when you were getting your pie Tris. Very impressed with how they get the water to appear without pipes- must be painful landing on one of those subterranean nozzels.

I thought Henry was well up for it last night. He has always been a player who saved his energy in games for the explosive moments. What was un-Henry like was his lack of accuracy; had been on his usual form, Henry would have notched at least one more. In the English game, Arsenal are being frustrated by two solid lines of four forcing them to knock it about sideways and a lack of midfield and defensive bite when the opposition breaks out. I suspect Saturday will be cat and mouse at Ewood although it could be a rip-roarer. I had expected Arsenal to win in Madrid and I am keeping shtum about what I am certain will happen on Saturday.

Two other good results for us at the week-end were the need for Bolton v West Ham and Villa v Citeh replays. Rev's concerns about West Ham mirror mine. Bolton's fixture congestion might do for the ugly awkward squad down the road but West Ham are looking the genuine article as a top Prem side from what I have seen.

Rovers have said no to loaning Matteo on loan so Sheff U have got Collins (who?) from Sunderland for the rest of the season. Have to say I expect Sheff U will be next season's Sunderland- Warnock has assembled a very good Championship side and Sunderland have shown what happens to very good Championship sides in the top flight. Reading have real class, Watford seem to have some good ones, PNE (sorry Abbey) are better than Championship in all aspects except up front, Palace would survive if they win the play-offs whilst Leeds are another good Championship side with nothing to equip them for life in the Prem.

Danns angling for a Premiership transfer.

McEvely is going back to Ipswich on Monday to complete his rehabilitation there. Andy Todd scored with a header for Accy Stanley this evening. Very public spirited of him to fly back from Dubai to give the neighbours a hand.