What fantastic reads- how I wish I was taken to that Spurs game! As for Boxing Day 1963, ten First Division games produced over 60 goals. This is without checking but Fulham beat Ipswich 10-2, there was a 5-5 (Brum v Arsenal?) our 8-2 and Bolton played in a 1-0 so somethings never change!

It was on the day of the club's 120th birthday as well. Surely you remember the two superb strikes from Lars Bohinen?- Forest fans not very happy about that. They had their skipper sent off and Shearer smacked in the fourth from the resulting free kick. Forest had just gone 25 Premiership games unbeaten before that game as well! The return at Forest ended up 5-1 to Rovers making the 12-1 aggregate double the joint largest aggregate double in the 118 years since the football league was founded (Newcastle clocked 11-0 over two games against Barnsley in 1911).

Some guy called Saunders has offered me a load of scarcely used red and white traffic cones. He thinks facing them will have a bigger psychological effect on some of the old Rovers players than facing some scarcely used red and white Sunderland players. D Murphy plays for Spurs now- did he change sides?

Perhaps when they know who has qualified? http://www.uefa.com/competitions/intertoto...rmat/index.html

I think you'll find United almost halved the size of their youth set-up. Fortunately, we are not run by the Glazers.

Just seen that PHILIP WAS RIGHT AFTER ALL!!!! Never mind reading the posts above, I searched for INTERTOTO because the Rovers have just announced they are applying to enter the reformed Intertoto Competition this year.

Hope you find the road out of Wigan again by 3pm ozzie.

Profile of D'Allessandro

About 20 players are taking $40m between them. The entire Board of Directors was costing less than $600K.

John Williams in the LET

Can somebody watch it and let me know the score?- I can do something else tomorrow afternoon now.

A draw is long over due for both sides. Everton have also made a habit of winning this sort of game in adversity and doing doubles over us. That said, we are well capable of winning there and have a Manager who is capable of setting the team up to get it. Hughes and the team bungled at West Brom- I am trying to remember an occasion in the last twelve months when they have mucked up performance and tactics two games running (that is a different issue from losing two or more games on the run).

We are out of the FA Youth Cup courtesy of a howler by the England (and Rovers') keeper two minutes from full time. But for that we'd be in the next round and the Coach would be a genius for turning round a one goal deficit. In terms of economics, the Academy is long term. Downside is £2m+ out of the door every year. Upsides are: - Occasional Dunn/Duff transfer fees - Sell on clauses kicking in (Beattie and perhaps Danns, Bruce or Johnson from Brum to come) - Occasional fees for players sold (Johnson and perhaps Gally, Dougles and Harkins to come) - Savings on transfer fees payable (how much would we have to pay to buy Johnson and Peter or their equivalents as squad members?) - Savings on wages (they are probably earning half equivalent players would have been paid bought in but this is a temporary advantage until they command a new contract) Taken over a ten, fifteen or twenty year cycle (and that is how any R&D facility ought to be evaluated although you manage them very much for the here and now to keep them on their toes), the Academy and its predecessors wash their faces. JW has clearly told them what they have to do in future- produce a dozen Prem squad players for the Rovers over the next two to three seasons. It seems that it might fall short in that objective but it probably will continue to cover its costs in the overall scheme of things.

Hasn't Paul le Guen already been appointed at Ibrox? I have not followed it closely but I saw headlines to that effect two days ago.

Will he sign permanently for a Championship side? Seven points and goal difference to be bridged when you have recently been stuffed 5-0 by the team you have got to get ahead of BEFORE you start trying to overhaul teams in the safety zone. My feeling about 'Arry's January transfers is that he went native in the Championship. He's signed a side to get promoted from the lower division, not one to stay in the Prem. WBA know how to scrap as we found out to our cost. And I wouldn't take Pompey's post-January squad in preference to the squads of Boro, Fulham, Villa or Newcastle given the choice even if they were all starting on level points, which they are not. So we (and the rest of the Prem) can see how D'Alessandro takes to life in a Prem relegation struggle before looking in the summer piggy bank.

Nice comment from Oliver Holt.

A bruising draw running through extra time would have been preferred tonight but a good stuffing for the Toffees was probably the next best preparation for Saturday.

The point i am making is that the USA do not consider Adu good enough for their senior squad yet. The Nigeria/USA thing was settled ages ago but perhaps he will regret his choice in pure footballing terms unless he teams up with Obi at Chelsea.

Well as he hasn't cost anybody £12m and he hasn't been a star turn at a major International Competition (Obi for Nigeria in the African Cup of Nations), Adu is behind those two at the moment. Certainly Obi would have been in the Nigerian team had they qualified for the WC but I am hearing that Adu is not in the picture for the USA. Plenty of time to catch up though.

On paper, Boro are serious contenders for the UEFA Cup. In the Prem, they are just like West Ham the season they went down- packed with talent which seems incapable of fighting for its life. Watch them come to Ewood and win after I've written that!

How to make £44m out of gullible Geordies and other reasons for not becoming manager of NUFC.

I agree with Revidge- the Glazers are either playing junior partner to Berlusconi in cobbling some @#/?ised version of the NFL (which will become public after the Italian General Elections) or they are stuffed. Evidence that they are stuffed is that all the big brand names Hughesy mentioned are reported to be giving the Glazers the cold shoulder, the Etihad deal is worth half the deal Arsenal have done with Emirates if it is only £56m and the gaps are beginning to appear in the red plastic seats BEFORE the prices start rising. It is one thing to pay up for the good of your club but being asked to cough up double or triple the rate of inflation (if they are lucky) to pay for somebody you didn't want in the first place to take over your club is another matter altogether. We have often commented about the fickleness of the glory seekers who came to Ewood. Well what are 10, 20, 50% of the Manc supporters other than glory seekers? Come on Wigan!!! Putting emotion to one side, the politics of a Euro Soccer NFL (lets call it the EFL) are tricky to say the least. Would Real Madrid or Barcelona play in Berlusconi's creation given that their funding/raison d'etre is very much about unfinished Spanish regional politics? Or Inter Milan or Juventus? No, I don't think they would be junior partners in Berlusconi's creation either so Italian domestic issues could easily screw it. Would the American brands withstand the sort of consumer boycott supporters organisations across Europe could mount? (only one of Pepsi or Coke could get the rights- the "winner" could easily be the one who under bid if they are smart and do a deal with the supporters) The G14 is anachronistic in its membership (Leverkusen, the equivalent of West Brom, are members and the Old Firm have not got a prayer of being admitted) If membership were dictated in terms of economic power, around half the EFL clubs would be English. If that doesn't happen, the likes of Spurs, Villa, Everton, Citeh and the FS 'toon show are going to be in a murderous mood. You might take one Glasgow franchise into it...... Abramovich has no political interest in wrecking the English League structure and is not even a G14 member. He is the true giant and he is squeezing one Manc ball on the field and you can be absolutely certain he and Kenyon will very happily squeeze the Manc's other ball in the commercial competition. FIFA and UEFA would have opinions. Although there is weighted voting, UEFA now has some 50 Associations and if you look at how the competitions are all being organised- European Nations, Champions League, UEFA, especially the reformed Intertoto- they all are structured to give the little boys a chance. 44 or so National Associations in Europe are not going to vote for permanent exclusion. If you open the door theoretically for Sliema Wanderers (there is a Maltese who is one of the most senior guys in UEFA), you also open the door for the Mancs to be relegated from the new competition and that is the one risk factor the Glazers DO NOT want in selling their plan to American Investors for whom big guys doing badly is the norm in the NFL. Not even Blast Sepper is going to be so stupid as to set up a club competition in competition to UEFA in the way the FA screwed the Football League in setting up the Premiership- is he? Fortunately, the club competitions outside Europe are so weak qualitatively (everywhere except South America) or financially (South America for the time being) that an idea of a true World Soccer Franchise seems very very remote and that would have to be the price of FIFA involvement. The true litmus test could be: would 14 or more Prem chairmen vote for Watford to be members of the Premiership at the expense of expelling the Mancs? Perhaps BRISA should tell JW they would be solidly behaind him voting for the retention of the present structures. One final hypothesis- the EFL is announced as starting in 2007/8 and will take the top four Premiership clubs in 2006/7. Suppose Rovers come fourth.....

Whenever I have seen McClaren interviewed, he just comes over as incredibly thick. He was happy being treated as a boot scrape at Man U which presumably appealed to the egos shuufling round the corridors of the FA but this is a guy who has risen several layers above his level of competence through being as bland as a handwipe.

The Kroldrup story is a wind-up of anybody who wants to believe it. Fiorentina paid £3m and rising for him but of course they have no idea about Serie A football and are utterly clueless about which centre half is which... The BS quotient about who is fit, who is not fit, who is playing, who is on the bench etc etc seems very high at the moment Messrs S, P and others. Speculation is fine, presenting it as though you know is simply a route to the ignore button.

I have very happy memories of both Garner and Shearer leaving world clazss defenders trailing in their wake.