With 7th no use for UEFA qualification, that ups the pressure on Rovers, Bolton, Spurs and Arsenal even more to get every point they can. I can see this going to the wire- imagine having the possibilty of CL football or Intertoto hanging on the last two games assuming Chelsea gets shifted to 26 April.

Maxmum points possible are: Bolton 78 Spurs 76 Arsenal 74 Rovers 73 with just Arsenal v Spurs and Spurs v Bolton to come by way of head to heads between the four. I am sticking with the view that all four will be approaching every fixture as a must win until the 4th place is out of reach and that will drive the points collection of the winner of this race to something like 69. Put it another way, as a neutral looking at Rovers' fixture list, you'd say 69 is doable and the other three must know that.

Unfortunately rather high as I didn't put a bet on it.

Shearer was failed by Newcastle. It was written by Niall Quinn- a Mackem- but is 100% true. If ever a player was bigger than the club, it was Shearer towering over the lilliputian Geordies. At least at Ewood he had a Premiership winning team built around him and he was able to score over 30 goals three seasons running. In many ways, Rovers qualifying for Europe (especially if its the Champions League) will be like Banquo's ghost parading at the Shearer testimonial.

I doubt the G14 will sail off into their own world- they are not strong enough to do so and secure their financial position. What the current scurmishes are about is extending their power base so that they will be able to call all the shots in the future with a crippling effect on the rump of football. Unfortunately, they probably have an extremely good legal case with the Charleroi and Lyon claims and once the insurance/compensation door is open they will be able to press on for payment for the players appearing in internationals. All this is pointing to international competition becoming as devalued as the FA Cup. The best bet for UEFA/FIFA would be to go for a long and messy appeal if/when they lose the Charleroi case. Time is on the side of the football authorities and not the G14. As time goes by, there will be more rich and powerful clubs in Eastern Europe hellbent on either joining or wrecking the G14 whilst Chelsea will only grow in strength outside the G14 unfortunately. Also by the laws of averages, more of the G14 will return to being average mid-table sides- not strong enough for regular European competition but not bad enough to get relegated and hence be kicked out of the G14.

I disagree. There are four very good squads all in good form in a race over eight games (ten in Bolton's case). One or two will drop away but would three or four? 4th place needs 69 points this season, maybe even more. However, 65 points should assure 6th at worst and no way would 7th get more than 65. Incidentally, I just know its going to be Chelsea v Liverpool in the FA Cup semi-finals because we are in Euro contention this year. Just as Arsenal will go and win the Champions League if we come 4th!

Great having Aussies rooting for us all the time. Blue phil, what has Wembley got to do with politicians? It is a combination of the FA falling apart when they should have had tight management them Multiplex taking on a project that was too big for them. All the British prime contractors walked away and refused too bid. They obvious smelt the losses involved quite apart from the drainage systems!

Sky sports analysis and an opportunity to say what we think about Bellamy. Those are some impressive stats that Bellars is chalking up this season.

Banana skin of banana split proportions if Sunderland's injury list is this bad.

John Williams got there before you 'drog- transfer market for players better than we've got and the Academy for building the squad. The key to good business is good timing. Somehow, I don't think this summer is the best time to sell MGP, Bellamy, Neill and Nelsen. At the end of the day, every business needs assets it can sweat as well as assets it can sell. As for giving Hughes et al, a 20% stake in transfer fees- isn't that called bungs? Probably the reason why good financial and managerial control has been introduced at football clubs dividing the financial transaction which is conducted by the CEO from the target selection which is the Manager's responsibility unless the owner is called Romanov, Ellis, Mandaric etc etc.

Opening skirmishes as UEFA threatens to fight back. UEFA's G14 resolution passed. I hadn't realised that the G14 had presented a £500m bill for use of their players in international games! UEFA threaten expulsion from all competitions including domestic leagues if clubs form a breakaway competition. I guess that the Glazer influence is coming at the European level initially. And disguising upping the Mancs' season ticket prices effectively by an increase equivalent to the cost of a season ticket in the Riverside.

A fragrant tribute to Australian project management.

That has made my day as a lifelong hater of the Mancs! Keep MGP!!! Back to business- Spuds put down the marker when they leaked an idea of an £8m bid for MGP a few weeks ago. For all the pessimistic realists, if you are going to sell him, at least get the starting market price right. Any early-20s non-Bosman 10+goals a year midfielders going for only £6m in any decent league?

Dunny is in bother. Listened to the interview on the World Service and Sullivan put thye injured players first on his blame list.

Actually Philly, probably just what Germany doesn't need. Beating a massively under-strength USA who are probably headed for a vey uniumpressive World Cup anyway cannot improve matters much but only mask their problems.

Just reading these threads brings home how fantastic that Rovers side was in the early '60s. I was too young to be allowed to go but I remember reading the match reports in the LET and Blackburn Times. Tyrone shoelaces- I have no quibble whatsoever about the '60s midfield getting all four places over the Premiership winners in the combined team.

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.